We have been made aware that November 5th is election day. Politics have been going on for the better part of a year. Even though you are probably “sick” of hearing all the banter, voting is important.
The vote did not come easy in our democracy. The founding fathers of our USA decided that the first six presidents were to be elected by special people. The qualifications of these special people were to be a male, age 21, and a landowner. Many people were not landowners yet, so the requirement of land ownership was removed for the seventh president. The people were overjoyed with the election of Andrew Jackson. The people proceeded to the White House in Washington DC and yelled “it is ours.” People entered the White House, were jumping on the furniture, forcing the newly elected President to jump out the window.
As women know, it took a long time before the right to vote was open to females. Many demonstrations took place by many to achieve the right to vote in 1920.
Our democracy came to us from many cultures. The early Greek culture in B.C. A system was set up to include a vote for the senate to represent the people. A court system was also established. The Romans admired the Greek system, so they proceeded to practice a form of democracy. Even our indigenous people, whom Europeans met when coming to North America, had a representative form of government in their tribal meetings.
Our government is known as a representative form of democracy. Basically, it is set up as a form of checks and balances. We have three branches of government, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. The legislative makes the laws, the executive carries out the laws, and the judicial interprets the laws. There are various powers given to each branch to keep the check and balance system working. Due to certain types of personalities, there are times when the balance of power gets out of order. There is only one political office where you do not vote directly for the person. The president is elected by popular vote and the electoral college.
The founders of our democracy decided we would set up a system where each state had so many electors. Based on the population, each state has so many members in the House of Representatives. Minnesota has 8 plus two Senators, giving Minnesota 10 electors. Each major party candidate who gets the majority vote in a state gets all the electoral votes in that state. Under this system, a candidate for president, can get a majority of votes but lose the electoral vote. The winner has won in states with larger electoral votes.
To understand our government in more detail, it would take a student of constitutional law to give a complete understanding of the goals of our early founding fathers.