Preview

Popular Vote In 2000: A Case Study

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
300 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Popular Vote In 2000: A Case Study
Explain how, having lost the popular vote in 2000, Bush nevertheless became president.
Even though President Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, he was still able to win the election because he still had the majority. There are 538 total votes in the Electoral College and a presidential candidate must win a majority of the electoral votes to be elected, exactly 270. In 2000 there were a total of 538 electoral votes available with 270 needed to win the election between George Bush and Al Gore. Bush won 271 electoral votes by winning over more states that count for more electoral votes. Al Gore, won only 266 electoral votes and even though he won the popular vote, the states he won in did not count for enough electoral votes, therefore Bush

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Describe with clear and specific details from the texts the role the state of Florida played in the outcome of the Election of 1876. What other states played a similar role?…

    • 769 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    With the bitter wounds of British tyranny still stinging, the Founding Fathers thought up the first amendment. Democracy flourishes only when freedoms to express views, both political and those of other concerns, are guaranteed. What happens, however, when your own government seizes and destroys these rights, in its attempt to censor the public 's pursuit of political knowledge. The Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) court case brings forth this question and many more, as Citizens United, a nonprofit organization, was challenged in their attempt to broadcast "Hillary: the movie," by the FEC. The verdict, which was ruled in favor of Citizens United, deemed the film an act of the organization 'a first amendment right to free speech. Correct in their ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the abolition of restrictions…

    • 945 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The easiest way to approach the question would be to be against it. Ballot initiatives known as a direct initiatives undermine the political process we have had in place since the beginning of our nation. American voters elect representatives to create laws that benefit society. If these representatives fail to do their jobs then they can be voted out of office during the next term. There should never be a time when a group of voters gets together and decides that since they can't get what they want they will pull an end-around on the legislative process by simply creating their own bills from scratch and submitting them to the public to be voted in as laws. The major problem stems from the fact that if given the chance voters will vote to…

    • 375 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The presidential election in 2000 between George W. Bush and Al Gore was a close race, unfortunately for Al Gore, the election was not fair. When Florida voted the first time Bush won all 25 electoral votes, he won by 15,000 votes. Palm Beach county in Florida demanded a recount because many citizens believed they voted for the wrong person due to the confusion of the ballot. The machine which counted the votes didn’t count correctly and somehow took away thousands of votes away from Gore and gave Bush and extra 3,000 votes. After realizing what had happen another machine recount took place and the difference of Bush and Gore votes was 1,784, not including dimpled chads. The Secretary of State at the time, Katherine Harris, denied an extension.…

    • 251 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Electoral College is an institution that may have served a purpose 200 years ago when the founding fathers needed a system that would be met with approval by both large and small states. The Electoral College is a flawed method of electing our President that has created problems in previous elections and is likely to be the source of problems in the future. The Electoral College provides an undemocratic method of choosing our president that potentially undermines the will of the voters. Not only can a candidate be elected without actually winning the most votes, it puts our elections at the mercy of electors who don't always cast their vote as pledged. I intend to demonstrate that the problems inherent in this voting method far outweigh any benefits it may provide. Replacing the winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes with a system such as proportional representation or eliminating the college altogether in favor of direct election is the best way to ensure a trouble-free and fair election…

    • 2120 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Is The Electoral College A Fair And Equitable Way To Elect The President Of The United States?…

    • 343 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The big problems of the electoral system were particularly evident in the 2000 elections: There may have been significant discrepancies between the voter decision and the electoral vote; a candidate who obtains the most vote’s nationwide, does not necessarily have to combine the most electors. Al Gore won in 2000, the absolute majority of votes, but received fewer votes in the Electoral College as his opponent George W. Bush. Another disadvantage is the focus of the candidates on states where pollsters cannot predict a clear decision (in particular, the traditional Swing States). The other states get little attention during the election campaign, often sequentially resulting in below average turnouts. The same is shared in the coastal states…

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    When the United States first gained its independence, a set of laws and regulations had to be formulated in order to keep the country running. The Founding fathers came up with these laws and regulations in a meeting now known as the constitutional convention. In this convention, the method for electing the president and vice president was created and it was called the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a method the United States uses to vote for the president and vice president. It was first created back in 1787 and over the years it has been ratified continuously to keep up with society’s changes.…

    • 1523 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the last two months of the 2008 Presidential Election, only eighteen states received even a single visit from a candidate. Just two of those states have very small populations. So the Electoral College doesn’t make candidates care about small states (Mackay). The Electoral College makes the campaigning for the Presidency very focused on just a few states. These are called “battleground states”. The outcome of the elections in these states could decide the entire race. Because of the way this method pans out, there is “virtually no campaign” in states that already have an obvious winner like “Kerry with Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and Bush with Texas and Utah” in the 2004 election…

    • 1283 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Before the tense and puzzling presidential election in 2000, many people thought the Electoral College was a place of education. Most people now know that it is not a place, but a process of how the President of the United States of America is elected. The Presidential Election of 2000 helped inform Americans that our President is not elected by the popular vote, but through the process of the Electoral College (Ballaro). The Electoral College has existed since the beginning of America. In the Electoral College, each state gets a specific amount of Electoral Votes. Electoral Voters are special electors who cast a vote that reflects his or her individual states choice for President. Together, all of the states come together to make up a total of 538 votes, which means the winning candidate needs 270 electoral votes to achieve victory (Ballaro).…

    • 920 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many people tend to think way too much when it comes to government policies. And when people begin to think too hard, then the thoughts floating around in their head make perfectly fine things turn into issues. One issue that is starting to arise is that of the Electoral College, which has been around since the Constitution was scripted. This may seem like a long time ago, and it may appear to some people that times have changed, so the Constitution should change with it. However, if something so greatly prepared has worked for such a long period of time with a superior outcome, what would the point of changing it be?…

    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    electoral college

    • 573 Words
    • 3 Pages

    ELECTORAL COLLEGE : The reason why we use the electoral college in the U.S. is to decide who is going to be the next president. The presidency is not always won by popular vote. The founding fathers opted for an electoral college , because they wanted the president to be chosen by those who were well informed ,and qualified enough to have the ability to chose a president. The main argument against the electoral college is that the presidency should be won by popular vote alone. It shouldn’t be that one candidate could win the popular vote, and still lose the election. One of the pros of the electoral college is that the system persuades candidates to promote themselves in small and big cities of the battle states. Another pro of the system is if a recount was needed it could often be centered to the specific state (s) . For example in 2000 a recount was proposed in the state of Florida between Al gore and George w. Bush, if not for the electoral college the recount may have had to take place in the nation. One of the cons of the electoral college is that it has a major possibility of not representing the popular opinion , by that I mean the voting system has the hazard of a “faithless” elector a person who is pledged to vote for a specific party s candidate but votes for an other . The electoral college has preformed its function for over 200 years by ensuring that the president of the U.S. has both sufficient poplar support to govern and his support is sufficiently distributed throughout the country to enable him to govern effectively. The fact that the electoral college was originally designed to solve one set of problems but today serves to solve an entirely different set of problems is a tribute to the genius of the Founding Fathers .…

    • 573 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    With the recent election, a controversy has come up about the eliminating the Electoral College. The Electoral College is made up of a group of electors where they vote for the President and the Vice President based on the states popular vote for the candidate. There are 538 Electoral College votes and in order to win the election, a candidate must have a majority of 270 votes to become the President. When Americans cast their vote, they are actually casting votes for the electors who will then cast their votes for the candidate.…

    • 663 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Electoral College was created so that uneducated people wouldn't put an under qualified person into the Presidential Office. “The Founding Fathers established it in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.” (https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/about.html). The Founding Fathers created the Electoral College within the Constitution of the United…

    • 1243 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Electoral College is a process of presidential nominations. A body of people representing the states of the United States, who casts votes for the election of the president and vice president. Also, can be seen as an election of the president by a vote in congress and election of the president by a popular vote of eligible citizens. “In the Article II of the U.S. Constitution Electoral College was seen as a compromise for the presidential election process because politicians believed that a purely popular election was too reckless and would give too much power to the heavily populated parts of the country” (Williams, 2012). The Electoral College is set up as American’s do not directly vote instead they choose a group of people who pledge to…

    • 512 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays