Is the political process of the United States Fair? – Argumentative Essay

Introduction

Elections play an integral part of the political systems of any democratic state. These elections however, take different paths in different government systems regarding their constitutions and/ or court decisions. The political behavior and theory of a nation has a significant effect on the outcome of the elections. For instance, the election of a candidate could be based on the party identification, policy views, individual’s financial capability, and group membership among other factors (Schmidt et al. 173). One of the other factors is just how fair is the election process? This paper is therefore an in-depth analysis of the fairness of the election process of the United States.

To determine the fairness of the election process of any country, there are a number of interplay factors that ought to be looked at and considered. As for the case of the United States, the results of the US census come in handy. This is because they play a big part of determining the formation of the voting districts. The fairness of the voting districts without compromising on the socio-economic status or race factors is something that the American legislators have been working on this for decades now. However, the true position or rather the fairness of the district formation is dependent on the data collected from the census which again depends on the individual who completed the census forms. This therefore means that the people who will complete the census form play a part in making the US electoral process fair.

The next step of determining the fairness of the election process after the districts formation runs from the campaigns down to the winners’ declaration.  First of all, campaigns use a lot of money some which makes the entire process unfair. For instance, the US election system is designed in such a way that only those with ‘enough’ money have the opportunity to participate. It indeed locks out potential candidates who may have financial constraints for campaigning. This is an indication of the unfairness of the system since only those with money regardless of their qualifications and capabilities participate. A case in study is the political dynasty of the Bush family. “The elder George Bush served successfully in local, state, and national politics which opened the door for his son, also George Bush, to serve in a similar political path, ultimately ending in the same job as his father – the Presidency of the United States of America” (Schmidt et al. 176).

The United States of America is a good example of a state that has a two-party political system which is dominated by the democrats and the republicans. A two-party system is dominated by two main political parties that take part in almost all elections whereby the resulting government formed is made up of members of the two parties.  Of the two parties, one forms the majority while the other forms the minor percentage of the members of government. In such a system other third parties come in but do not last long and are quickly evicted from the system given the strong competition from the two parties. For this reason, critics of the US electoral process have registered discontent when it comes to the ballot box. In the past however, polling tests and fees made the system even more unfair. Nevertheless, with the banning of voting tests and fees thereby giving each citizen an equal chance in the ballot box has made the system a little fairer. The problem of unfairness comes in because of the limited poling hours which at times make some citizens to never get the opportunity to vote. Secondly, is the issue of language barrier where the ballot papers and boxes are written only in English hence discriminating those citizens who may not have knowledge in English language. Other discriminating factors like distant polling stations and complications in the electoral process also raise the issue of unfairness.

Conclusion

The US election system should not be viewed as being completely unfair as there are instances where fairness has been experienced. For instance, the election and re-election of the incumbent president showed a clear sign of the fairness of the electoral system. The main reason behind Barrack Obama’s success in the elections was his political campaign policies and promise to the United States citizens. First of all, Obama is an African-American and the issue of ethnicity would be inevitable given the fact that all the other candidates of his time were pure Americans. During his campaign period his main competitor in the democrat’s party was Senator Hillary Clinton who was very popular at the time. Despite having begun her campaigns early and most political opinion polls showing her in the lead, Obama defeated her with a landslide given his political strategy. In addition, the American citizens had the notion that by having Barrack Obama as their president, he would improve the United States stand globally. Thus, despite McCain, the Republican candidate competing with Obama having a positive image among the American people he did not win the elections.

Work Cited

Schmidt, Steffen. Shelley, Mack and Bardes, Barbara. American Government &

Politics Today. 2008- Cengage Learning. Print.