AP Us Gov & Pol Practice FRQ #2 A significant feature of the Electoral College is that most states have a winner-take-all system. Answer a-d listed in text section (too much type to fit)
(a) Describe the winner-take-all feature of the Electoral College.
(b) Explain one way in which the winner-take-all feature of the Electoral College affects how presidential candidates from the two major political parties run their campaigns.
(c) Explain one way in which the winner-take-all feature of the Electoral College hinders third party candidates.
(d) Explain two reasons the Electoral College has not been abolished.
(a)The winner-take-all feature of the Electoral College is a method that the government uses to distribute the electoral representatives to each candidate. With the winner-take-all method, the candidate that wins the most votes in a state gains all of the states electoral representative votes.
(b)With the winner-take-all system in place, candidates focus more on states that are more densely populated so they get 'more bang for their buck'. This way they may travel less, or shorter distances, and sway citizens opinions in a smaller area, but gain more electoral votes because the population is so dense. They may also spend less time in certain states due to the fact that the state is already so strongly behind the other candidate(s) and there is no chance that they would gain the most votes. Therefore, they can focus more on other areas.
(c)The winner-take-all feature hinders third party candidates by virtually not allowing them representation. The winner-take-all system makes it nearly impossible for any minority party to win representatives. For the party to obtain the most votes out of all of the parties they would have to become a major party or there would have to be a very large number of minor parties and no large groups. But since the republicans and democrats exist, one of them will automatically gain the electoral votes due to their size.
(d)The Electoral College has not been abolished for the two main reasons of the difficulty and the fear of recounting votes. To completely abolish the Electoral College would require an amendment
(b) Explain one way in which the winner-take-all feature of the Electoral College affects how presidential candidates from the two major political parties run their campaigns.
(c) Explain one way in which the winner-take-all feature of the Electoral College hinders third party candidates.
(d) Explain two reasons the Electoral College has not been abolished.
(a)The winner-take-all feature of the Electoral College is a method that the government uses to distribute the electoral representatives to each candidate. With the winner-take-all method, the candidate that wins the most votes in a state gains all of the states electoral representative votes.
(b)With the winner-take-all system in place, candidates focus more on states that are more densely populated so they get 'more bang for their buck'. This way they may travel less, or shorter distances, and sway citizens opinions in a smaller area, but gain more electoral votes because the population is so dense. They may also spend less time in certain states due to the fact that the state is already so strongly behind the other candidate(s) and there is no chance that they would gain the most votes. Therefore, they can focus more on other areas.
(c)The winner-take-all feature hinders third party candidates by virtually not allowing them representation. The winner-take-all system makes it nearly impossible for any minority party to win representatives. For the party to obtain the most votes out of all of the parties they would have to become a major party or there would have to be a very large number of minor parties and no large groups. But since the republicans and democrats exist, one of them will automatically gain the electoral votes due to their size.
(d)The Electoral College has not been abolished for the two main reasons of the difficulty and the fear of recounting votes. To completely abolish the Electoral College would require an amendment