The two-party system in the United States arose out of an ideological debate on the nature of government and the country’s historical circumstances. While the parties were viewed as both sinister to the existent of the state by the founding fathers, the two party system was borne out of a debate pushed by Washington’s supporters including Madison and Hamilton. The parties emerged as a temporary solution to provide an ideological vehicle for voters to express their preference on whether they preferred a big government or not. The Federalist Party, led by Hamilton favoured a strong government and a close association between the government and people’s economic power, while the Democratic-Republican Party under Madison called for a limited role of government and a populist approach to the nation’s leadership. The former’s elitist approach and refusal to back the 1812 war rendered it unpopular, forcing it to fade away. President Monroe’s period saw reduced partisan politics up until 1828, when internal factions emerged within the surviving Democratic-Republican Party, leading into a split of the two to form Whig Party and Democratic parties. The Democrats supported a system where the executive dominated other branches of government and opposed any policies that would lead to giving industries power over the taxpayer, while the Whigs supported a strong legislature. The Whig party survived until 1958, after which it was replaced by the anti-slavery Republican Party, which adopted many of the Whigs’ ideological foundation.
The low voter turnout in the United States compared to other mature democracies stems from numerous factors. To begin with, the requirement of registration of voters makes voting a two-step process in which only those who make in the first step are allowed to participate in the process. Effectively, people who do not register as voters are disenfranchised. In addition, the tradition of election days being Tuesday has become overtaken by the fact that most Americans having to go to work on voting day. Effectively, some would face penalties and pay reductions if they chose to take time off to go and vote.
Given the fact that voting is voluntary in the country, and most citizens that intend (and want) to vote may still do so regardless of the associated procedural factors, the low voter turnout points to massive voter apathy among Americans. The feeling by some people of a corrupt political class, out to push the interests of big business and lobby groups as against the interests of the common people is certainly a contributory factor. Hofstadter (1978, p. 21) argues that this may have stemmed from a philosophical dilemma in the US Constitution, which conceives human beings as both free but also creatures of rapacious self-interest. This led to the emergence of competitive capitalism, under which “America continued to be an arena for various grasping and contending interests”, with interest of the weakest groups being ignored by consequence. In order for the United States to become more democratic, it is necessary to decouple economic power from political power, by reducing the involvement of big business in the political decision-making. Campaign funding laws for instance, need to be changed in order to ensure big businesses and citizens do not use their financial favours to influence political decision-making in their favor and to the detriment of the larger voting constituency. It is necessary for the countey to become more democratic, lest its founding pillar will collapse and with, the very foundation of democracy and good governmance.
The Electoral College
The Founders had misgivings about the possibility of the president being elected directly by voters. They predicted that a tyrant could easily manipulate the public opinion and take power. Hamilton who believed that the electors would be able to ensure that only desirable and qualified individuals became a President. Therefore, with the presence of Electro College, no one will be able to manipulate the citizens just to take power. It was also hard to trust the citizens to make choices about the president. The Electro College was also formed to act as a legal agency in the sense that it assures the existence of transparency in elections (Shea 347). The Electro College ensures that an individual running for the presidency meets the supposed qualities. Further, the college was meant to ensured that the federal government’s structure was such that small states felt represented.
This institution was established under Article 11, Section 1 clause 2 of the United States Constitution. The Clause allows every state to elect a number of electors equal to the number of senate representatives to which the State is entitled. The Clause also states that no Senator or any Representative in an office position will be chosen as an Electoral. The Political practices guiding the Electoral College is equal state voter’s representation. The Electro College is made up of 538 electors, and a majority of 270 votes are enough to choose a president. Every State is entitled to electors equal to the number of its Congress Representatives (Shea, 19). The political and constitutional practices of the Electro College serves at the interest of all the citizens. This practice has made politics inclusive, moderate, and enhances stability than when the population elected the president directly. However, one of the consequences of these provisions that is not mandates in the constitution is the idea that the winner takes all the votes from every state. Thus, this makes no difference when an individual wins a state by 50.1% or 70%. of the votes (Edwards 292).
The Electoral College is not democratic. The principle behind democracy is “one-man-one-vote”, which is why by manipulating the system so that small states have more power than their should have according to their representative population, unequally renders the citizens in those states more powerful than those in larger states. Further, the fact that the winner takes all the votes from a state ignores the plurality of voters in a state and may, in fact, represent the actual intentions of the voters in their choice of a president. By creating a buffer between the choice of the president and the electorate, the Founders hoped to prevent the possibility a tyrant manipulating public opinion to rise to power, while at once giving greater power to smaller states, the Founders were simply being pragmatic. They wanted to appease the smaller states in order for them to remain in the Union while at once protecting democracy by barring possible threats to it. It was effectively not a decision that was not driven by the need to preserve democratic principles, but instead, to ensure that the alliance hand together.
Works Cited
Dahl, Robert. Why Not a More Democratic Constitution?” in How Democratic is the American Constitution? New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. 121-139.
Edwards, George. Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America: Second Edition. New York: Yale University Press, 2011.
Gerken, Heather K. "Make It Easy: The Case for Automatic Registration." Democracy Journal Issue 28 (2013). Web. Retrieved from http://www.democracyjournal.org/28/make-it-easy-the-case-for-automatic-registration.php.
Hofstadter, Richard. "The Founding Fathers: An Age of Realism." in The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It. New York: Vintage, 1978.
Madison, James. "Federalist No. 10 ." The Federalist. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 40-46.
Roberts, Daniel Steven. "Why We Don't Vote: Low Voter Turnout in U.S.Presidential Elections." University of Tennessee HonorsThesis Projects. (2009): 1-29. Web. Retrieved from trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2373&context=utk_chanhonoproj.
Shea, Therese. America's Electoral College: Choosing the President, Comparing and Analyzing Charts, Graphs, and Tables. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2006.
