Electoral college Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Electoral college - Essay Example The amendment provides room for the electoral process in case the electors failed to choose the president by majority. Each state had a number of electors that were same as the number of the state representatives in the upper and lower houses of the legislature. In 1969, the District of Columbia gets for the first time number of elector equal to the least populous state elector’s by the 23rd Amendment. The electors person's choice is from the states they represent by a populous vote that translates to the presidential candidate they favor in the end. There have been many attempts to change the system, but none has been useful. The states organize the elector’s elections where congress determines the dates. Some of the attempts that have been successful include Nebraska and Maine give two votes to the overall winner in the states and one vote for congressional district winner. The system of the presidential election termed as Electoral College system establishment is in the year 1804 after the 12th amendment of article II of the constitution. The main factors that influenced the creation of the system were to ensure that each state gets a fair say in who is their president. The electors were the rich land owners of the time and had to be white. To create a solution should any of the candidates fail to get a win of 270 populous elector’s votes. This scenario arises when the electors who pledge to vote for a given candidate vote otherwise as they are not bound to their promise by the constitution. The House of Representatives resolves this stalemate. The pros of the system include it enhances national cohesion in the country and ensures that distributing the populous president decision all over the country. The system also ensures that there is political stability by enhancing the two political party system (Bickel. 56). The people against the system argue that the system provides a leeway for a candidate to win the nationwide election and los e the electoral vote. The critics justify their argument by the events that happened in the year 2000 when republican George Bush lost the populous vote and went ahead to win the electoral vote. His opponent Al Gore won the populous vote but, lost the electoral vote. In the end Bush, become the president. The critics say the system gives a leeway to election of a minority leader. They argue President George W. Bush was a minority leader but went ahead to gevern the country four those four years. This leader will not protray the Nation's free will as a few individuals that have a free will on whom to elect into office elected him into office. The minority leader increases the risk of dividing the nation into half. Most of the people will not have faith into his leadership regime. This may trigger mass protest and derail the economy of the nation. Critics point to the possibility that the Electoral College discouraging voter turnout in many states. Critics’ argue since the coll ege has the mandate to elect the president then, the voters may after all leave the decision to the college and boy court elections. This will be a big setback in democracy as people will feel to be denied their constitutional mandate to elect the leader of their choice. Many republicans in the current states where they rule are aiming to change Electoral College

Hppiness and Mental Well-being of Society Essay

Hppiness and Mental Well-being of Society - Essay Example A society is crippled if happiness does not prevail in it. Similarly happiness is directly linked to the mental well being of an individual and together both of these components found an important part of the society. A society which does not have happiness may be known as partial or without an important component. In order to maintain a society one has to ensure that happiness is prevailing amongst individuals. This article would further describe happiness in relation to a society. It would tell how a society can be judged by the happiness or unhappiness which is prevailing in the society (Nettle 2005). Happiness is being governed by different components of life and all these together amalgamate to form a perfect circle of happiness. The feeling of happiness which one individual has depends on his own personal nature and varies according to his needs. Some people get happy when they are having immense power while some get happy when they are living in a society which supports equality. The factors of happiness can vary according to the experience one individual has to go through or it can be hereditary too (Layard). With the increasing time the factors of happiness have changed through out the world. Even if a person is wealthy it is not necessary that he would be happy and would have a good life. If he is wealthy he may have to go through other problems which would destroy the happiness in his society. In the previous years it is seen the living standard in the western countries has increased and so has the level of wealth. Gradually the level of wealth and living standards has be en compared to the level of happiness and research has clearly shown that the level of wealth and living standards does not count to a greater amount of happiness in the world. The amount of wealth does not illustrate an image of the society, however the amount of happiness does. It shows how well a person is leading his life and how the government is working towards the betterment of the society (Gilbertson 1987). In this regard a study conducted by Easterlin gave surprising results. According to his study though wealth did have an impact on a person's happiness but after a certain increase in a person's income it no longer left an impact and hence he suggested through his study that though increasing income did have an effect on happiness but only up to a certain extent. Different researches done by different psychologists and economists tell us about the impact of the factors of happiness affecting society. Different surveys conducted by the organization of World Value Surveys sh ow how different factors affect the societies and the happiness levels in them. The method of the research adopted by the organization is to measure the effects of happiness in accordance to their effect. Every factor is compared to the factor of income and the results are derived respectively. Following is a table which shows how the factors affect happiness in the societies respectively Fall in happiness(index) Income Family income down 33% relative to average 1 Work Unemployed (rather than employed) Job insecure (rather than secure) Unemployment rate up 10 percentage points Inflation rate up 10 percentage points 3 1.5 1.5 0.5 Family Divorced (rather than married) Separated (rather than ma