Introduction
The Electoral College was originated during the end of 18th century with the aim of giving due importance to the educated ones while considering that the average farmer did not knew much about the government and politics. Education is a necessity of a democratic government to be elected fairly for which the population is required to be educated. However a major population of US was not educated in late 18th century. So the Electoral College was established as the electoral process of US and this system is under debate by many expert analysts currently. The election process in US starts with the once a decade census. The outcome of the US polling help in determining the formation of districts. Legislators have formulated policies since the start of last century in order to ensure that the districts are formed fairly irrespective of race and socio-economic status. The technique of sketching districts to house many categories of people is frequently termed as gerrymandering and may result in few very fascinatingly shaped districts. The method of applying this system of shaping districts is just as good as the collected information from those who fill out the forms. After establishing the districts or states it is required to determine whether the election process in United States is fair or not. The process of elections begin with campaigns in which a lot of prospects are there to alter the results while challenging the fairness of United States election process.
Variations and abuses in the election processes
In some states of US, the people with prison record are not allowed to vote at all while in some states they can. This shows clear differentiation of the system throughout the country. In some states the people require only driver’s license but in other it is not enough. All these facts are clear violation of the basic rule of democracy which states that the process of electing should be simple and uniform. There is another conflict among the states regarding US elections process which is that since the elections are organized locally within each state and are usually conducted by the state offices so the fairness of the system automatically gets compromised. Various officials of these state offices are found to be involved in altering the results of elections as they are willing to use their powers to turn the results in their favor. This favoritism or alteration of results questions greatly about the fairness of US election process. More abuse and riots are seen in various election campaigns especially when the results are narrowed down to one state in the end. The best example of such cases are Florida in year 2000 and Ohio in year 2004 .
Supreme Court resolves conflicts which is against democracy
Everyone recalls the tragic events in Florida during year 2000 elections. The recounts of votes, the law cases and the final decision of presidential election taken by not the voters of that election but by the Supreme Court. The memory of that debacle is still the cause of major shudder in US politics. The decision of election taken by Supreme Court has made the American election system more suspect of being unfair, complicated and more open to abuse then before. These complications clearly violates the basic rule of simplicity in democratic elections. The same situation is considered to have happened in the Ohio 2004 elections .
US Elections are democratic
Each individual has right to cast one vote in the elections which makes everyone equal and hence the results of the polling can be considered as democratic. The overall system is designed with great simplicity as after once the votes are casted the votes are counted and the results are announced in the favor of the one who get highest votes. The democratic system of US elections empowers every single citizen to cast their vote with free choice. The fairness of the system is evident from the polling procedures adopted by the government of US. Local elections conducted by each state also ensures that the elections are conducted in familiar environment to the locals rather than outside authorities interfering in the states matters and causing conflicting situations.
The overall election process is open to media
In United States, all the steps of election process are open to people through media and any irregularity can be caught by media and presented to the general public. In fact the fairness of elections become more evident when various programs and news are especially organized during elections. These programs include debates on the process of elections and highlight any errors or mistakes and abuses happening in any state and region where the election are taking place. Media plays a vital role in motivating people to cast vote to increase turn out of the elections by bringing awareness to common man. Today most of the population of US is completely aware of the importance of casting vote.
Frauds and abuses in the election process are local and not systematic
The frauds and abuses in election process at states and regional level are not due to any fact that these are planned at the federal level and are only targeted into only few states. This is due to the fact that it is not essentially happening all over the country. People just notice such things when they are seen at their level of voting and they perceive that it is happening all around the country. In several ways, it can be deduced that the election system is not broken from the top level which is the system formulating authority and rather it is broken from the bottom level.
Conclusion
US election process has always been facing conspiracies and especially when public have to cast a vote. History gives substantial evidences to prove the unfair allegations true because of polling test and the charges that public have to pay in order to give vote to their desired party. Government of US has now taken serious actions to evict all sort of illegal means and obstacle and has provided easy access voting box for general public but the results of such measure are still not materialized. There are still certain obstacles that public have to face like limited number of hours for voting, non-availability of ballot box in other languages, the polling booth are mostly located far from general public residence. These issues complicate the overall election process and this has built up perception in the minds of people that election process of US in unfair and biased. US government needs to take appropriate steps to ensure prevalence of complete democracy as US government all the time emphasizes on the power of democracy when it comes to the political issues of other countries.
Works Cited
Keller, Gerald. Bstat With Review Cards and Printed Access Card. Connecticut: Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.
Posner, The Richard A. Breaking de Deadlock: The 2000 Election, the Constitution, and the Courts. New Jersey (NJ): Princeton University Press, 2001. Print.
