Benchmark 1 Position Paper

Name: Dario Rainone Date: 10/03/08 Stream: Water Position paper Unlike most people might believe, voting, as a concept itself, was not first created in the United States of America during the eighteenth century. Instead, its origins are by a long way more ancient than that. Since the dawn of times, humans have always tried to collaborate and live in harmony among each other. The way to achieve such a goal was, and it still is, creating a society based on rules and canons everyone has to respect, in order to maintain this state of accord. In other words, the term society can be simply identified as an organized voluntary association of people. However, those laws are not determined directly by the population. The government, which is indeed chosen by the people, has that responsibility. Obviously, because there are different beliefs and ideologies all over the world, there are also different kinds of leaderships that are adopted. This means that totalitarian governments do exists in the world. Still, in what is commonly called a “civilized society”, the relative system of government is the democracy. Since the Roman and Greek civilizations, this system has evolved through the centuries, in the same way that the way representatives are elected did. Today, the most known and dominant form of democracy is present in the USA. The “National Popular Vote” bill would represent the most favored and manageable way of electing the president. At the moment, the method used to choose the president is the so-called “Electoral College Vote” system. Every four years, Americans who are eighteen or older have the right to vote. The way votes are coordinated is not as simple as someone might imagine though. First, each of the 50 states has a certain number of electoral votes (there

is a total of 538), which are formed by the number of districts of the state and the number of senators, which is always two. Once the votes of each state are counted, the candidate who obtains the highest number of votes becomes the one the state in question supports for presidency. Then, he therefore receives all the electors from that state. The one who can acquire enough states, and reaches the minimum needed of 270 total electors eventually becomes president of the United States. Nevertheless, a good percentage of the American population does not feel comfortable with this system, since it appears to them distorted and almost absurd. In this way, people may start to doubt that their vote has a direct influence on the elections. Hence, it may negatively affect the importance Americans give to voting. The evidence can be appointed by the fact that when a young voter truly understands the “Electoral College Vote” system, he immediately feels perplexed and dubious. On the other hand, the “National Popular Vote” system does not compromise the trust of Americans toward the government. What it would do is guarantee the Presidency to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia as well. In other words, all the votes of all the states are counted, and the candidate who receives the highest number of votes is elected. In 2008, this compact has been joined by Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, and New Jersey. Nevertheless, their 50 electoral votes only amount to barely 19% of the 270 needed for the compact to take effect. In conclusion then, the “National Popular Vote” system in a way would encourage more young Americans to vote, since it is understandable and a more pragmatic alternative to the current one.

Works Cited “Explanation of National Popular Vote Bill” < http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/explanation.php>

“National Popular Vote Interstate Compact” < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact>