Attempts To Change Electoral College System - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 5 Words: 1531 Downloads: 9 Date added: 2019/06/13 Category Politics Essay Level High school Topics: Electoral College Essay Did you like this example? The preamble to the Constitution of the United States begins with the recognizable phrase, We the people, implying that the form of government laid out in the constitution will be representative of the peoplers will. The formation of the Electoral College in Article II, Section 1, leads to the conclusion that this may only indirectly be the case. The establishment of the Electoral College was the result of compromise as the members of the Constitutional Convention struggled to determine how the President would be elected. While some Founders called for a popular vote, most were at best, reluctant Democrats (Jillson pg. 21). Many did not believe that the common people capable of making the best choice for such an important office in the newly formed government. The Brearley Committee was formed to resolve how the President would be elected. The Brearley Committee proposed that an Electoral College be formed to vote for the President. To balance the interests of large and small states, the Electoral college would give one electoral vote to each state for the for each of the members that state has in Congress. A simple majority would decide the victor. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Attempts To Change Electoral College System" essay for you Create order The original proposal provided that the Senate, in which state representation was equal would select the President from the top five candidates should the Electoral College not reach a majority. When objections that the addition of this power to the Senate made it resemble the aristocracy of Great Britain that America had revolted against, it was decided that the final vote would be made by the House. While the Constitution establishes the Electoral College the states are free to determine the manner in which electors are appointed. There are currently 538 electors in the Electoral College, one for each member of the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as three who are designated for the District of Columbia. The three additional votes for the District of Columbia were added in 1961 with the ratification of the 23rd Amendment. Despite its name, the electoral college is not a place. (What is the Electoral College,2018). Instead, it is a method that the founding fathers created as a compromise between those who believed that the president should be elected by Congress and those who believed the president should be elected by a popular vote. Many people tend to forget that the Electoral College was created to ensure fairness and is written into the constitution, often misunderstanding what it can and cannot do. To put things into perspective: a voter in Wyoming has over three times as much power in the Electoral College as a voter in California. For every 134,783 people, they get one electoral college vote, while in California 1 vote represents 410,647 people. California has 55 total votes in the the college but in a winner takes all system if 22 electoral college goes to Republican and the rest to Democrat, the staters electoral votes are all Democrat. However, the Electoral College did not always work fairly or in the way, it was meant to. For most of the course of American history, the Electoral College has reflected the views of the populous and the Electoral College results have matched the popular vote. There have been seven instances when the Electoral College either did not produce a majority winner, did not agree with the popular vote or produced an otherwise disputed result. In the election of 1796 electors voted for two candidates without differentiating between the office of President and Vice-President. The candidate who received the majority of electoral votes became the President and the candidate with the next highest number of votes became Vice-President. This election resulted in John Adams becoming President and Thomas Jefferson who ran against him becoming Vice-President. Problems began to arise in elections, most notably in the elections of 1796 and 1800. The election of 1800 showed John Adams and Thomas Jefferson faced off again. This time Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr received the same number of electoral votes and the decision was pass to the House of Representatives where Jefferson won ten states becoming President. The elections of 1800 of 1804 led to the ratification of the 12th Amendment in 1804 which called for the electors to cast two votes distinguishing between votes for President and Vice-President and gave constitutionality to the process by which the offices of both with be decided in the event an electoral majority was not achieved thereby solving the complications of the prior two elections. There have been other attempts to change the system, but the closest Congress has come to trying to amend the Electoral College after 1804 have failed to pass the Senate (Electoral College Fast Facts, 2018). The most notable attempt w as made in 1969, which proposed the direct election of a President and Vice President, requiring a run off when neither candidate received more than 40% of the vote (Electoral College Fast Facts, 2018). This proposed resolution made it past the House of Representatives but sadly failed to pass the Senate. The election of 1824 presented a new problem, John Quincy Adams received fewer electoral votes and fewer popular election votes than opposition candidate Andrew Jackson. Since neither received the necessary majority for an Electoral College win the decision was again referred to the House. As stipulated by the 12th amendment the House now had to choose from among the top three candidates, Adams, Jackson and Crawford. The House elected John Quincy Adams President. The election of 1836 resulted in the Vice-Presidential candidate Richard Johnson missing the majority of electoral votes by one. Per the 12th Amendment, the election was referred to the Senate where Johnson was elected. Today, if in the event that the Electoral Colleges is in deadlock or if no candidate receives majority votes, a contingent election will be held (Electoral College Fast Facts, 2018). In this case, the election of the president goes to the House of Representatives. Each state casts one vote for one of the top candidates to select the winner. Only two presidential elections have been decided in the house; once in 1800, and again in 1824 (Electoral College Fast Facts, 2018). In the election of 1876 twenty electoral votes from four states were disputed by Congress and referred to a bipartisan Electoral Commission for resolution of the election. Though Samuel Tilden missed the electoral majority by one vote and won the popular election the commission awarded all twenty disputed votes to Rutherford B. Hayes and he was declared a winner by 185-184 electoral votes. While some may know a bit of how the electoral college votes, there is little known about who these so-called electors are or how they are chosen. Article II, section 1, clause 2 states that electors cannot be a Senator or representative or anyone holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States may become an elector (About the Electors, 2018). The selection of these electors is a two-part process. The first part of the process is controlled by political parties in each state. The parties nominate electors at state party conventions or they are chosen by a vote through the central committee (About the Electors, 2018). This results in the presidential candidate having a different set of electors in every election. The second step of electing electors takes place on elections day when votes are cast for the next presidential candidate. When people vote, they are actually voting to select their staters electors. In 24 states the Electoral College can vote for whoever they want to. There is no Constitutional provision or Federal Law that requires electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their states. Some states, however, require Electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote (About the Electors, 2018). Usually, the electors stay true to their party values in voting for a candidate, but they are not required to. Electors who have pledged to vote for a candidate but end up not are called faithless electors, but more than 99% of electors vote as they have pledged (About the Electors, 2018). In the past presidential election of 2016, the question of how the Electoral College actually worked came into question. Before this election, it seemed that paid no attention to how the president was elected, they assumed that whichever candidate received the most votes automatically won. This, however, is not the case. When Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral vote, the nation was baffled. How did that seem fair at all? Claims being made such as Russia hacking the election may or may not be plausible explanations for this, but this is not the first time in history a candidate has won the popular vote and lost the Electoral vote. In 1824, Andrew Jackson won the popular vote and lost the Electoral vote, as did Samuel Tilden in 1876, Grover Cleveland in 1888, and Al Gore in 2000 (Revesz, 2016). Instances like these plant the seed of doubt in the minds of the American people. How can the US still be considered a legitimate democracy if the votes cast do not truly equate to voting for a candidate, but voting for an elector to choose a particular candidate? Attempts to change the Electoral College system have not been successful, but who knows what the future of voting holds in store for the United States?

The Phenomenon Of Reality Television - 941 Words

TITLE: â€Å"The phenomenon of Reality Television† GENERAL PURPOSE: To present new information SPECIFIC PURPOSE: To inform my audience about the history of reality television, the types of reality television, how popular it has become in our world today, and the negative and positive effects of reality television. THESIS/CENTRAL IDEA: There is so much more to reality television than meets the eye. INTRODUCTION I. HOOK: Just imagine. You’re sitting on your couch flipping through the channels on your television. You notice that your favorite reality show is on: Keeping up with the Kardashians. What could be more entertaining than watching drama unfold right before your very eyes. II. I like so many other people around the world enjoy watching reality TV, I must admit. I must admit I do watch reality TV from time to time, and I wanted to find out more about this fascinating â€Å"reality† on television today. III. Through my research, I have learned more about reality TV and why it has become such a popular phenomenon in our world today. IV. PREVIEW: Today, I would like to share more information about the history of reality television, the types of reality television, how popular it has become in our world today and the negative and positive effects of reality television in our society today. BODY I. Believe it or not, reality television does have a history a. Reality television goes way back before it exploded in the early 2000’s. i. Reality television is a broad term and as youShow MoreRelatedThe Cultural Phenomenon Of Reality Television1741 Words   |  7 PagesThe cultural phenomenon ‘Reality Television (TV)’ has become an increasingly popular genre of television since its paroxysm onto the airwaves in 1945. 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Accounting theory and Contemporary Issues

Question: Describe about the accounting theory and contemporary issues. Answer: 1.AIS the full form of which is Accounting Information System may be referred as the refined structure of the firm, which helps in storing, retrieving, gathering, processing and managing financial data. The CFO uses this data or the chief financial officer or it can be managers, accountants, tax agencies, consultants, business analysts, auditors and regulatory authorities (Penman 2013). The entire system is one of the key aspects that help in retaining the necessary financial data confidential. Highest level of accuracy is maintained through the system of AIS by the accounts. The next important part includes preparing the methodological aspects that would gather the crucial financial data and help in accessing the information correctly (Flood 2014). The necessity of the AIS is to keep the data safe, secure and intact. The components of the accounting system consists of the six essential factors like methodology, people, internal controls, data, infrastructure of the IT and software. As per the area of AIS it might be said that professionals are the accountants of the firm people are considered to be the system users. This is one of the major elements to keep the running of the firm smooth and productive. The accounting system is used by the financial department of an organization to gather the necessary data and to retain the same for the growth of the organization. The auditors, consultants, managers, CFOs for maintaining well organized departments in organizations, rightfully use this system (Blankespoor et al. 2013). Common information could access by the firm at any point of time through the database or the software. This helps in reducing time consumption and to keep the data and handy. Both internal and external processes could do the collection of the data and retrieving the same. The internal processes include the staffs or the employees of the organization. On the contrary, the external processes include customers who order online (Guthrie, Ricceri and Dumay 2012). The data is collected from these sources to analyze, mange and assess the situation of the firm. The software of the AIS usually codifies that figures that is obtained from the procedures or instructions. The efficiency of the firm is related to the tracking of the data or the information. The data that is collected in the accounting system procedure is the financial information of the firm. However, with the improvement of technology the software and the database are one of the most positive elements that would help in the growth and assessment of the organisation. The different types of data usually includes sales orders, report regarding sales analysis, vendor invoices, inventory data, purchase requisites and billing statements of customers (Henderson et al. 2013). The integration of the hardware and software of AIS is helps in retaining all the necessary financial information correctly and accurately. However, the hardware must be compatible with the software. One of the pivotal jobs of the internal structure of the organization is to secure the confidential data safely. This is correctly done by the organization that the internal structure is transparent in the scenario. This could be understood with the help of a case in 2002 where a company called WorldCom had a fraudulent issue of about $4 billion. The auditors could save the form from bankruptcy by removing the CFOs from the data collected or received from the AIS. Hence, it might be said that AIS is one of the help in the organization for maintain clear and transparent data for the security of the internal structure (Blankespoor et al. 2013). Few factors are ensured by the AIS. One of the basic features is the qualitative features that are integration of the primary and secondary data. The next important features include consistency and comparability. These aspects help in the maintenance of the validity and the reliability of the organization. One of the key aspects of the organization is to reflect the validity in the data. This is ensured correctly by the AIS in case of large firms where manual track of the financial data is impossible to retain. Validity includes the faithfulness in the system and the neutrality in the system. Value feedback and timeline are the other crucial factors that are related to the reliability and validity of the system. Prediction is one the other key aspect that helps in analyzing the prediction or the future hold of the company in the financial data. This also includes the timeline that is one of the essential attributes of making the right decision (Blankespoor et al. 2013). . Feedback value is one of the main components in analyzing the decision or the process of the organization. Reliability is one another key component that is part of crucial processes like the inventory management. In the inventory management, the importance lies in the stock where fraud cases could be easily handled with the perspective of reliability. Faithfulness in the system is retained through the balance sheet that maintains the inventory of the company. The aspect of neutrality is the help that is required in the accounting standards. The standards of accounting are largely influenced by the investors and the economic consequences. The interest groups are largely affected in case of false neutrality (Bell and Griffin 2012). However, in case of the system and the database the neutrality is maintained effectively as there are no partial manual adjustments. The difficulty in maintaining the clarity in the economic scenario and neutrality is usually resolved by FASB. The mangers of the organisation receive their rewards based on the profit report that is produced by them. In such cases, the accounting standard could be fairly analyzed through the GAAP model. The best service and the differences in the neutrality could be analyzed through the data system. The improvement of the financial data could be clearly understood through the comparison of different years. This is easy as the accounting system software is one of the easiest means to receive the scenario of financial data. Hence, it might be said in this regard, that AIS is effective and impartial system without any issues in safety or security. The transparency in the system helps the company to grow without any fraud cases or chances or being bankrupt ed (Moser and Martin 2012). 2. As per the authors Watts and Zimmerman, the concept of Positive Accounting theory or famously known as PAT is considered to be effective to implement a suitable accounting practice in case of any modern business organization. Most of the modern business organizations implement several objectives that are required to attain a set of financial goals and services. This form of accounting theory assists the management of the firm attains their desired form of objectives in case of making and recording financial transactions. Many accounting theories do not allow this; however, positive accounting theory does so (Flood 2014). The major drawbacks for most of the accounting standards that the firms are implementing are that they have failed to provide a suitable guideline in case of some basic financial transactions. The accountants fail to record these types of transactions due to the amount of complexity attached to them. On the contrary, it can be inferred that positive accounting theory helps all the business firms to implement any type of transaction recording method that is suitable for the respective business organization. This type of method assists the accountants to minimize the discrepancies and loopholes associated with each financial transaction. There is a positive outcome associated with this theory and due to this reason, it is important for the modern business firms to implement and utilize this theory within their system. The main reason behind choosing positive accounting theory is that it assists the accountants and financial analysts to know about actual implications of several transact ions. In addition to this, the financial impact can also be measured with the help of effective utilization of positive accounting theory. Guthrie, Ricceri and Dumay (2012) opine that there are two major perspective that are related to the core of positive accounting theory. These are opportunistic perspective and efficiency perspective (Krahel and Titera 2015). The perspective of opportunistic refers that the financial analysts of the organization utilize this accounting theory in order to re-build their self-interest. It can be inferred that these self-interest can also be direct positive correlation with the interest of the respective organization. Apart from this, several other factors are associated with this perspective. One of the factors is debt-equity hypothesis. This further infers that the accountants and top-management of the firm tends to reflect higher amount of profits. Such kind of strategy will help the firm to pay off their debt, as it will have a negative impact on their capital structure. Due to this reason, PAT is preferred when it comes to modern business accountants. Another point of view is political cost. In this case, a business organization is assumed to highlight lower amount of profits than the actual one. Such kind of strategies helps the firms to get unsighted from the various political leaders who are present in the market in which the respective organization is operating (Greenstein and Hunton 2015). Another factor or assumption is associated with opportunistic perspective that is bonus plan hypothesis. In this type of hypothesis, the respective manager of accountants of the firm intends to manipulate several figures. This has a negative impact over the firms performance at the end of the financial year (Penman 2013). On the contrary, it can be inferred that in case of efficiency perspective, PAT assists the managers and accountants to select the best possible accounting method in order to recognize a fair picture of the operations of the business (Moser and Martin 2012). From this, it can be inferred that there are several positive things that are associated with the implementation of PAT. However, on the contrary many modern authors have opined that there are several loopholes in this respective accounting theory. Firstly, PAT evaluates the respective result on the application of any accounting method. Therefore, the exact solution or analysis is not available to the managers or accountants of the business firms. Another assumption that the theory has made is that it assumes that significance of employees interest and managers interest goes side by side. However, in reality, it differs in most of the cases. This theory may also create a wide negative impact on the financial statements of any firm is when the interest of both the parties contradict each other (Bell and Griffin 2012). Several accounting procedures are present that can assist the firm to select the best alternative method that the respective organization can use. These forms of methods are as follows:- Tax laws method Cost assessment method Selected leadership procedure Determination of industry constituents (Henderson et al. 2013) In case of tax law method, the business organization evaluates a respective accounting method based on the current laws and regulations. In addition to this, it can be inferred that the organization takes into account various tax concessions based on the theory they have opted with (Krahel and Titera 2015). In case of cost assessment method, the financial position of the firm plays a pivotal role. It can be inferred that the managers of the firm can take a call on what form of cost assessment method they can select. This can be in the form historical cost method or fair value method. Selected leadership procedure infers that the management of the firm will select an accounting procedure based on the existing leadership. On the other hand, in case of determination of industry constituents the firm selects ban accounting method based on the nature of the industry in which it operates Greenstein and Hunton 2015). Therefore, it can be concluded that there are several accounting method that a respective business firm can select. PAT helps to guide the accounts and the higher-level managers of the business firms to select the best alternative accounting method that will help them to meet their needs and objectives. References Baxter, W., Davidson, S. and Davidson, S. (2014).Studies in Accounting. Hoboken: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. Bell, T.B. and Griffin, J.B., 2012. Commentary on auditing high-uncertainty fair value estimates.Auditing: A Journal of Practice Theory,31(1), pp.147-155. Blankespoor, E., Linsmeier, T.J., Petroni, K.R. and Shakespeare, C., 2013. Fair value accounting for financial instruments: Does it improve the association between bank leverage and credit risk?.The Accounting Review,88(4), pp.1143-1177. Bragg, S. (2013).Accounting best practices. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley Sons. Brigham, E. and Ehrhardt, M. (2011).Financial management. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. Deegan, C. and Unerman, J. (2011).Financial accounting theory. Maidenhead, Berkshire: McGraw Hill Education. Flood, B., 2014. The case for change in accounting education.The Routledge Companion to Accounting Education, p.81 Greenstein, M.M. and Hunton, J.E., 2015. Retraction: Extending the Accounting Brand to Privacy Services.Journal of Information Systems,29(2), pp.237-237 Guthrie, J., Ricceri, F. and Dumay, J., 2012. Reflections and projections: a decade of intellectual capital accounting research.The British Accounting Review,44(2), pp.68-82 Henderson, S., Peirson, G., Herbohn, K., Artiach, T. and Howieson, B., 2013.Issues in financial accounting. Pearson Higher Education AU. Krahel, J.P. and Titera, W.R., 2015. Consequences of Big Data and Formalization on Accounting and Auditing Standards.Accounting Horizons,29(2), pp.409-422 Moser, D.V. and Martin, P.R., 2012. A broader perspective on corporate social responsibility research in accounting.The Accounting Review,87(3), pp.797-806 Penman, S., 2013. Accounting standard setting: Thoughts on developing a conceptual framework.China Journal of Accounting Studies,1(3-4), pp.157-167.