Report on Winner-Take-All :: Winner-Take-All Elections Politics Essays

Report on Winner-Take-All Winner-take-all(a) is a term apply to describe single member district and at large pick dodgings that award seats to the highest take getters without ensuring fair representation for minority groups. In the United States, these are typically single-member district schemes or at-large, block-voting systems. Under winner-take-all rules, a slim majority of voters can control 100% of seats, leaving everyone else in effect without representation. Theres somewhatthing else troubling about the way we elect presidents--something beyond the personal attacks, the draggled voters and the influence of big money. It is the fact that so many of those who do vote dont have their votes counted.Florida is a good example of what Im talking about--not because that state move out to make the decisive difference in this weeks election, but because more(prenominal) than 2 million voters--nearly as many as will go to the winning candidate--had no say in the outcome. All of Floridas 25 electoral votes will go to the other guy.Thats the unavoidable consequence of the winner-take-all system that prevails in all the states. At the end, of course, any contest for a single authorization is a winner-take-all affair. But why should it be that way in the states? why should more than a million-and-a-half California supporters of George W. Bush see all 54 of the states electoral votes go to Al Gore? In short, what is wrong with tryst each states electoral votes in accordance with the way the states electorate voted? A better question, no doubt, is why not ditch the electoral college system tout ensemble and go to direct elections?Politicians as different as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon backed a constitutional amendment to have all the states go to a proportional system. Obviously, nonentity came of the proposals. Its probably because the political party that would be favored in a winner-take-all state is usually the party that runs the state. Th e party with the power to change the system has no incentive for doing so. It is not the sole fact that votes get vitiated that bothers me. There is much more to it. Bush hardly campaigned at all in New York--and for the same reason that Gore neglected Idaho, Wyoming and Alaska His opposing had the states locked up, along with 100 percent of their electoral votes. Indeed, Bush was criticized by some GOP strategists for wasting time and resources campaigning in California.