Representative Democracy

So, the question asks are elections good for democracies? When I analyze this question, I immediately think about the word democracy and the type of democracy that is implemented within the U.S. The website “whatisdemocracy.net” describes democracy as the government by the people. The website also explains how people should be able to have their say in one way or another in everything that affects their lives. Which Is why democracy is either direct (by every member of a community having the possibility to enter personally, without mediators, his position on a particular issue into the decision making process) or by a representative democracy (elected members of legislative bodies). In the U.S., representative democracy Is the type of democracy
When talking about elections we also have to define this word in depth in order to shape the correlation with representative democracy. According to the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, elections are defined as the right, power, or privilege of making a choice. Going back to representative democracy, the people or the majority of people, will utilize elections by making a choice on who to choose as their candidate for public office. This candidate will then go on to represent the people who are assigned to his or her constituency or community. This candidate is also expected to be the voice of the people who elected them in office. So why is there a problem? Why do we have concerns about elections being good for democracies? Well the problem leads to another rhetorical question, Are the people’s interest really being represented by the candidates we elect to represent us? As we began to break down the answer, I will add that my personal opinion to this question is, no. If I can say no to this question, I can probably say no to the main question on elections being good for
I can say that my reasons have some thoughts and reasoning behind my answer. The first thing is that the election process is categorize in two ways: the popular vote and the Electoral College. The two categories are very different in context. The Electoral College is a method of indirect popular election of the President of the United States (bensguide.gpo.gov). There is also the popular vote which is accumulated by the number of citizens who voted for a particular candidate. Now the popular vote’s influence is suppressed by the Electoral College which is the main decider of elections, especially presidential elections (people.howstuffworks.com). Now here’s a scenario for you, It’s election time and you are a voter who is about to cast his ballot and instead of your vote counting towards your choice of candidate, it is use to elect someone who you never seen before to cast your vote for you, if he or she decides to do so. Usually, electors are people who are politically active in their party (people.howstuffworks.com). This includes political activists, party leaders, elected officials of the state and even people who have personal or political ties to the presidential candidates (people.howstuffworks.com). Also the electors are chosen by each state’s party at state conventions. So basically the Electoral College takes the number of popular votes each state has per candidate and gives electoral votes based on the winner of each