Voting and Voter Turnout

Question A
There are several reasons why Americans don’t vote. Some of the reasons are the lengthy registration process. It is upon a voter in the USA to log in to the official website to register or get to the government office concerned with voting to fill the lengthy paperwork. The other reason is voter apathy and burnout, some of the voters feel discouraged to go voting because they think that voting do not make any sense and their vote will not make any change. Education level also makes some people not to vote; the illiterate find it difficult to go voting as some lack of information about candidates to vote for. Two parties may not be enough for some people. Some parties exist in America but there are only two main parties, so those who want to vote the other parties will not vote because they obviously know that their vote won’t count. The other reasons are no participation is mandated, other people are not allowed to vote due to lack of applicants photo, some like students don’t vote because voting is only done one day and they might not find time to go to voting stations due to tight schedules.
Elite democratic theories say that nonvoting is a problem to given people and not the political system. Elite Democrats claim that it is all about the individual’s lack of interest and knowledge that contributes to nonvoting. Elite democrats like George will, argues that what matters in an election is a better government and not participation. The elites, therefore say that it is thus better for the impassioned and the ill-informed to stay at home over the Election Day. Elites also say that nonvoters see no sense in political efficacy as voters do. Popular Democrats associate nonvoting to democracy problem rather than human nature weakness. Some of the popular democrats emphasize the problems that citizens face in registering to be a voter. They claim that registration is so complicated. They also advocate for change in registration and change of election days to Sundays for good voter turnout. The obstacles to voter participation are residency requirements, literacy tests, Grandfather clause, Good character tests, education, and poll tax among others.

 

Question B
The number of electoral votes in each state is determined by the number of Senators which is always two plus the number of Representatives, which changes every decade as per the size of the population of each state as provided by the census. Each state is allocated a given number of electors on the basis of population and congressional districts. Each state determines how to allocate the electoral votes they have been allotted to the president. Most of the states allocate their entire electoral votes to the presidential aspirant who takes the state’s popular votes; this is known as winner-take-all. In the winner take all, even if the candidate amasses 51% of the popular votes he/she is granted 100% of the electoral votes. Nebraska and Maine have adopted a different approach in allocating their votes from the other states. They use the congressional district method. The two states award two votes of the electoral to the winner of the popular vote, and then the remaining one is allocated to the winner of the popular vote in every congressional district ( 3 in Nebraska and 2 in Maine). This leads to contests of multiple votes that could result in electoral vote split. There are a total of 538 elector’s votes in the Electoral College. For one to become a president, a candidate must win a simple majority of 270 elector’s votes in a general election. A tie would be broken after a recount of the votes and after states secretaries have validated the election results. The tie can be broken by holding a run-off election guaranteed by the federal law.