The Pros And Cons Of The American Political System

Presented as a shining example of democratic virtues, the American political system is anything but. The system grows stronger by preying on the weak, oppressing the minority, and allowing the opportunity for losers to become winners through quirky math in ways that are not at all representative of what the people believe. Both the Presidential elections and Congressional elections are broken; one with bad mathematical outcomes and another built on mob rule. Not once but four times in American history did a candidate for president lose the majority of votes but still wound up with the highest office in the land.(FactCheck) With Congress you have elections plagued by the “spoiler effect” causing small parties to die and has the potential for …show more content…
They are: Single Transferable Vote and Mixed Member Proportional. With MMP the changes are two-fold, the first being doubling the number of representatives sent to Congress and second being that citizens get two votes, the first for a candidate and the second for a party. The votes for the candidates apply first, filling out the first half of the number of representatives while the second half are filled as the proportion of the parties sees fit. This increase in number of representatives and proportional system ensure that everyone 's voice is heard, allowing the minority to try to block the majority from just walking over everyone. Other than the Mixed Member Proportional system, the Single Transferable Vote provides another option to represent the country. Single Transferable Vote combines districts together so that instead of, for example, three districts sending one representative each one district would send three representatives. With STV the number of seats is divided from 100% of the vote and that gives the margin of victory. Any candidate to cross that margin wins a seat; since the voters in this system rank their choices just like the Alternative Vote the vote goes through several rounds. First any excess in votes the first winner receives go towards the voter 's second choice. This helps ensure that people are not punished for backing popular candidates and also shows that they are a larger block and therefore deserve more representation. Second, the biggest loser 's votes are applied to their supporters second choice and this continues until all of the seats are filled up either by a candidate receiving the required percentage or all of the seats being filled. Boarders are less important in this method so the problem of gerrymandering is reduced and no everyone in the district would have a local