The election process

As our class took a look at what goes into an election. From the preliminaries to the electoral college our class gained a better understanding of how presidents are elected and state officials are selected. Within this system is the electoral vote system. I came to the understanding of how flawed and outdated this system is. It makes a complexity out of a simple process that should just be popular vote. It has many downsides that far out weigh its few and irrelevant "benefits."
The electoral college gives some citizens more say in the government than other, detracts from ones will to vote, and can end up with a president that does not have a majority of the population on that canidates side.
Because of the ensured three electoral votes per state, some very unpopulated states hold citizens whos votes account for upwards of three times the voting power of a Florida resident. This is not what democracy is all about. Also the average voter may have much trouble in seeing how their vote effects the outcome the the election.

Seminar Reflection

Today in class we had our most relevant seminar yet. We viewed a significant article for what we have been discussing in class over the past few weeks. The article was "You're 16, You're Beautiful and You're a Voter." The New York Times article as well as our discussion related to the argument to lower the voting age to 16. The discussion was fruitful because the of the preparation that went into the seminar made by the students involved. With everyone having the article read and annotated there were many strong and compelling arguments that swayed the group back and forth until we came to the final agreement that the nation was not ready to lower the voting age and it was fine as it is now. When I entered the classroom I believed the change would be significantly rewarding and it should be changed as soon as possible. As people brought up points in the argument and their own beliefs I started to think: were my peers as a whole mature enough to have a major say in our government? I as i argued with my class and with myself, not sure what I was supporting I came to almost a tie in my mind, broken only by the fact that a change is harder to obtain than just keeping the system the same. "In all precedent ideals already in place have need to be overturned and any sort of disagreement goes to the predecessor" I believe Isidro stated. Therefore until a argument comes forward that overrides all fear of 16 year old voters the change should not occur.

Vocab Quiz

It is quite apparent that new constituents are exciting to participate int the referendum of electing a new president. Suffrage for those 18 years old came with hard work and determination and now young voters have the opportunity to participate in this American democratic process. Looking at the candidates this year it becomes more obvious why so many youth voters have rallied into coalitions to make a distance. With candidates such as Barack Obama, who target the youth votes, it is obvious why there has been this recent uprising of support from youth. Obama has vetoed the traditional methods of speaking solely to adults and listening to the criticism and support only from them, instead he has opened his ears to those just in voting age and answered their questions and concerns. This is almost liberal in its uniqueness because for the first time a candidate is reaching out for the support and inquiries of young constituents. The republican incumbents have followed suit in some shallow respects as they have appeared on popular youth media forms such as YouTube and Myspace but they are still set in their conservative ways and hesitant to devote so much time and effort to this cause not yet proven as worthwhile. These new methods are exceedingly progressive in their relative newness in the electoral process. As focus shifts towards the necessity of targeting youth votes it is obvious that 2008 will be a year of change and success.