California's Electoral System of Today -- No return to the New York Tammany!
It would be tempting to view the defeat of the Tammany Hall Political Machine by the opponents of political corruption as the clear triumph of good over evil. But the victory of the greatness of the 'morning glories' sniffed at by the politicians over Boss Tweed and his ilk was not so simply realized. The fall of the party bosses had as much to do with negative as well as positive political, historical and social influences upon the urban landscape of America. The first foremost and most sweeping example of this is the Great Depression that precipitated the subsequent nationally-based New Deal policies of the Roosevelt administration. This economic catastrophe created a program of federal social welfare surmounted the informal 'good corruption' policies on a local level that had allowed the Tammany politicians of the George Washington Plunkitt ilk to be supported. However, as gradually America became less fragmented by ethnicity and religious tensions, the class-based alliances and the narrow, polarizing ethnic alliances of the politicians became uprooted.
Plunkitt joked that New York City was governed better than Philadelphia because of the Irish presence in New York, because the Irish were better leaders -- and the Irish were synonymous with leadership in New York! This comment shows the dominance of that particular group in New York's political...
Perhaps more significantly, adopting this system would eliminate the U.S. Electoral College, and reduce the priority of national presidential candidates having to woo certain states with many electoral votes, such as California or Texas, as every citizen's vote would be worth the same amount. In Russia the impact of the system has been minimal and not necessarily promoted democracy. "In 1996 Boris Yeltsin won barely a third of the vote
Electoral College: Should the U.S. Push for Reform or Elimination? When citizens of the United States vote in a presidential election, many believe that they are taking part in a direct election of the president (Sutin 2003). However, because of the existence of the electoral college, established in the U.S. Constitution, this is not really true. The electoral college is a set group of "electors" who are nominated by political activists and
Supporters of the current system claim it allows small states and small town America to have a say in the election. The candidates go to every corner of the battleground states and many people get the opportunity to meet and question them. Many feel that is a major benefit of the Electoral College. Another benefit many see is that it gives the winning candidate the majority of the vote.
Over the years, the electoral process has changed a lot. As per the original rules, each state legislature selected its electors. The electors would then assemble at a given time and vote for two people. The person with the majority of votes became the president and the runner-up became the vice-president. This system was in practice until the 1800 election. (the Presidential Electoral Process) By 1800, American politics were dominated
How the Electoral System Works and Why It Is UndemocraticThe purpose of this paper is four-fold: 1) to describe the voting system in the United States and explain how it works; 2) to compare the American electoral system with the other types of voting systems; 3) to contrast the American electoral system with the other types of systems; and, 4) to provide an opinion as to which type of electoral
Correctional Development 3 Strikes As California goes, some say, so goes the nation. There is little doubt but that the single most important event in recent correctional history in the nation's progressive state was the development of the Three Strikes laws. Having accepted this idea, the state is now faced with massive budget shortfalls and is confronting federal court orders to immediately and dramatically reduce its prison populations simply because it
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