Critical POS Thinking 7.1 1.
4/8/2008
Jose Alvarez
If there was some kind of scandal that was not publicized to the media because of fear of effecting the election, yet the electors had been informed about it, then there is a good possibility that they might install a president the candidate everyone thought had lost the election. Another similar possibility is that this scandal seemed to endear the candidate to the people yet trouble the electors to greatly that they felt they must choose the candidate everyone though has lost instead because they did not want someone who had been a part of such a scandal running the country. 2. I do not believe that today's electoral conditions can increase the possibility of the election being decided in the House of Representatives because who the candidates running this election. The race is very close because the is the end of the Bush administration and the candidates running to become the next president are a woman and a black man for the Democrats, and a rich, white, war veteran for the Republicans. I believe that the race will be close but the Democratic candidate will win in the end. 3. Imagine that the results of the election are so close that the two candidates are literally hand in hand during the election. After all the polls are taken, it seems that there is only about two or three electoral vote's difference in either candidate's favor. When taken to the House, the Democratic candidate seems to be the overall best choice for President however, the candidate's running mate does not seem appealing in the least to the House, and therefore they decide that the Republican candidate's running mate is better suited for the position of vice president. 4. a. Regan: According to the rules for awarding Electoral College votes, Regan received all forty-one electoral votes for New York because of the winner-take-all policy that almost every state has adopted. Carter: Carter did not win the popular vote for the state and therefore did not win any electoral votes in New York. Anderson: Anderson did not win the popular vote for the state and therefore did not win any electoral votes in New York. b. The distribution of the electoral votes would seem to indicate that Regan was much more popular to the citizen in New York than either of the two other Candidates combined. 5. a. Carter: would have lost both states and their electoral votes. Ford: Would have won the Ohio and Hawaii popular vote by two votes in both states and received their electoral votes. b. Based on the new Electoral College vote Ford would become President as long as the 270 rule was ignored. c. Based on the new electoral votes, the decision would need to go to the House of Representatives because Ford would then have 269 electoral votes and Carter would
POS
4/8/2008
Jose Alvarez
have 268 electoral votes, neither of which is enough to have a definitive majority over the other candidate. d. The three candidates, who have a chance to win the Presidency for the election of 1976 in the event that the decision was taken to the House of Reps., would be Carter, Ford, and McCarthy, according to www.uselectionatlas.org, these were the three most popular candidates over all the in election of 1976. 6. a. Bush had the smallest margin of victory in the popular vote total for New Hampshire as well as Florida in 2000. b. 3,606 is the minimum number of popular votes that Gore would have needed to win the state's electoral votes. c. Yes, Gore would have had exactly 270 electoral votes, while Bush had 267 electoral votes. 7. a. The Democratic candidate won the popular vote b. The Republican candidate won the electoral vote. c. The winner of the popular vote did not win the electoral college vote because the state in which he won the popular vote was not as large as the one that he lost the popular vote in therefore while he overall won the popular vote, the amount of electoral votes for those states were not enough to win him enough electoral votes. State X is much larger than state Y and therefore has more electoral votes that state Y. because the republican candidate won that state's popular vote he got the 25 electoral votes while the democratic candidate only had 4 electoral votes from state Y. The minimum number of states a candidate would need is 11, to win the Presidency. If I were the chief campaign adviser to George W. Bush during the 2004 election, I would have directed only a small amount of the campaign's resources to California because I would have believed that the chances of winning that state were too small to be the main focus of the campaign strategy. The money could be better spent attempting to win over other states where the chances of winning over the opponent are greater, such as Florida. Assuming that the president was directly elected by a plurality of the popular vote, then in the case posed in question 9, I do believe I would direct more resources to California because of how great a population that state has. I wouldn't authorize the $5-million expenditure for the ads because there would be no need. If it was obvious that Bush would win Texas whether I did the ads or not, then I see no need to waist that kind of money on something that will only make the margin of victory greater than it already was. I'd rather spend the money on a series of ads that will help to win the election in other states where Bush is head to head with his opponent. I still don't believe that I would authorize the $5-million expenditure described in question 11 because Bush would still easily win the popular vote in that state, so it wouldn't be necessary to spend the money there.
8. 9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
POS
4/8/2008
Jose Alvarez
a. On the prospects of minor-party candidates, the proportional awarding system would not have great effect, however it would take votes away from the major party candidates, which might be the intent of some of the minor-party candidates of each state. b. The battle to win votes in states such as California and Texas would be much greater, with candidates spending huge sums of money attempting to win as many votes as possible an gain more electoral votes. Chances are that, at least in certain states, the battle would be nearly even for the electoral votes. c. I don't think that the proportional awarding system would have that great of an effect on the House if the election was to be decided by the House.