How Far Does the System for Electing the President Fulfil Democratic Criteria?

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Katherine Harvey                Key Skills

How Far Does the System for Electing the President Fulfil Democratic Criteria?

        In a democratic society such as the United States, there are several functions of elections, none more so than to allow democracy to prevail, hence the people of the country are given the opportunity, through voting, to decide who becomes president, thus everyone has a say in deciding who leads them. Understandably, there is a whole range of criteria to judge how democratic the US election system is. In short, the system is one that currently falls short of fully fulfilling the democratic criteria, however it does offer a relatively democratic system as a whole.

        A fundamental requirement of democracy is that of voter participation. The USA does offer men and women of all ethnic backgrounds the opportunity to participate in presidential elections, and as such this is a commendable asset to US democracy. On the other hand, participation levels are alarmingly low. In the 2000 presidential election approximately half of those eligible to vote actually bothered. This places much doubt on how representative the elected George W Bush really was. There is evidently a part, or a number of parts, to the electoral system which discourages people from voting hence such a low turnout. A major reason is voter apathy. Some would argue that there are too many unnecessary elections in the USA which has caused a high level of voter fatigue and, quite simply, a lack of interest. This is also the case during presidential elections, where the electorate are expected to vote in the primaries as well as the main election itself. The election campaign is one that lasts several months, this too inevitably leads to an all round lack of interest. Another argument is that the presidential election is basically a two party race, and there is arguably little difference between them and, as a result, some feel inclined to stay at home as they feel the outcome will make little difference. There are further reasons for this voter apathy such as the problem of negative advertising (where parties just attack each others policies) and also a lack of inspiring candidates.

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        In a democratic system there needs to be a strong element of voter choice, where the electorate are able to have a realistic choice of candidates in order to choose who they wish to represent their views. However, the US system effectively limits voter choice, and as such limits democracy. Due to the Republican and Democrat duopoly of power, there are essentially only two candidates with a realistic chance of being elected, providing voters with very little choice. A mounting problem is that both the two main parties have adopted centralist policies in order to attract as many voters as ...

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