America is Not Democratic

The United States of America, one of the greatest proponents of democracy in the modern world, is not truly democratic. The innate flaws and shortcomings of the world’s oldest constitutional democratic system have been eroding the frameworks of democracy in recent years. The ideas upon which the founding fathers of the nation built democracy are outdated and corrupt practises like gerrymandering are rampant. America is not democratic.

The Electoral College in the United States is composed of 538 electors who are tasked with choosing the President and Vice President of the United States of America. The Electoral College is a voting system designed to give more power to the states with more population, but allows for small states to swing an election. Under this system, each state is assigned a specific number of votes proportional to its population, so that each state's power is representative of its population. Additionally, two more senatorial votes are given to each State. So, while winning the popular vote may not ensure a candidate's victory, a candidate must gain popular support of a particular state to win the votes in that state. It is also important to note that winning the majority vote does not always mean winning the election. The goal of any Presidential candidate would be winning 270 votes in the Electoral College. Firstly, while the seats in the House of Representatives would be given out based on population on the idea of proportional representation, each State could only get two senators regardless of population. California's population is 70 times larger than Wyoming's, but they have the same number of votes in the Senate. Currently, California's two senators represent more than 37 million people, while Wyoming's represent fewer than 540,000 people. This means that larger states have lesser power to sway the election in their favour than they would in the case of proportional representation to choose the members of the Senate. This all boils down to the fact that America is a representative democracy, people elect their representative who will be tasked with electing the President. After all, we all saw in 2016 how Trump “won” the elections even though he did not have the popular or majority vote.

Moreover, a variety of institutional procedures and legalities prevent any other third party apart from the Democrats and Republicans from contesting for the elections.Elections Clause in Article I, Section 4, of the United States Constitution that gives the authority to regulate the time, place, and manner of federal elections to each state and making it easier to deny third parties. These ballot access laws make it harder for third parties to meet criteria like registration fees or petition requirements in which a certain number of voters must sign a petition to allow a third party or independent candidate gain ballot access. The 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) is another obstacle for third parties. The Act is supposed to regulate political campaign spending and fundraising by not only placing legal limits on contributions and expenditures but also forcing parties to fully disclose the names, addresses, and occupation of donors that contribute more than $200. Due to this Act, the Democratic and Republican National committees can raise and spend as much as they need to pay for legal and accounting expenses in complying with the act. Third parties, however, are only eligible to receive public funds after the November election and then only if they appear on the ballot in at least ten states and obtain at least five percent of the national popular vote.

In America, the voters chose a district representative who will then serve as a member of Congress. In order to win a state, a majority of the districts need to won.

Every ten years, after a census determines shifts in population, the process of redrawing state and federal voting districts begins. This process is known as Redistricting.The practise of Gerrymandering (it’s an actual word) is rampant in the United States where lawmakers redraw the borders of the districts on the basis of knowledge of geographical distribution of voters in order to give an unfair advantage to one political party or candidate. Two basic strategies are used- cracking and packing. Cracking means thinly spreading out voting strongholds of one party over as many districts as possible, in order to prevent that party from having the upper hand in any of those districts, whereas packing means cramming together as many voting strongholds of one party into one and the same district, in order to prevent that party from dominating any other districts. The Republican strategist Thomas Hofellar was responsible for While it's usually the voters that choose their politicians, through gerrymandering, the politicians can choose their voters. What’s more shocking is the fact that till date, there is no federal law that makes gerrymandering illegal.

And finally, the United States of America was founded as a republic and still is a republic not a democracy. Yes, a democracy is a form of a republic government but in an actual democratic system, the complete power to make laws would be in the hands of the people which is not true in the case of America where laws are made by the elected representatives. In a democracy, the majority will guarantee the rights of the people but in America, the rights are protected by the constitution. America was never founded on the principles of democracy and the entire process of choosing a President is not perfect either.

So, next time before hyping up the winner of the American Presidential Election on your Instagram story, remember how “democratic” America is and how rigged the whole process is.