Elections Test

An election is just one huge popularity contest. I would say the method of getting elected is not very democratic there are some required political aspects that must be present, but mostly it depends how much money, or how popular you are, which is anything but democratic. To get elected in today's political environment one has to be well known by everyone in the United States and have good political views that Americans agree with. When it comes down to it some people don’t vote for someone just because they are experienced and they agree with their political views; people vote for them because they are the most popular, hear about them the most, or see them on TV the most. The media has a lot of influence on who citizens vote for; the media is the source of how citizens are learning about the candidates. When the media does not present all the information about a candidate or adds their own opinion this could sway the potential voters one way or another. This may be considered as media bias, which refers to the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media, in the selection of which events and stories are reported and how they are covered. Media bias usually implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the perspective of an individual journalist or article. Some media bias is unintentional, but still exists; the inability of journalists to report all available stories and facts. An election can change directions drastically just by what the media is reporting about each candidate. So, the candidate with the best media coverage is usually better off than the other candidate. The candidates try to get as much good media coverage as they can so they have to raise a lot of funds to get the right message about the out. The two ways that candidates get money for their campaigns are by soft and hard money. Hard money is from political donations that are regulated by law through the Federal Election Commission. Soft money is money contributed directly to political parties for voter registration and organization by the Political Action Committees, or can unregulated contributions to the national parties nominally to assist in party building or voter registration efforts rather than for particular campaigns. The Political Action Committees (PACs) are organizations established by corporations, labor unions, or interest groups to channel the contributions of their members into political campaigns. The largest expense in a modern political campaigns is advertising, and most of the controversy about hard or soft money ultimately points to how much advertising a candidate can buy. Political advertising tends to say Vote for this Candidate. If an ad tells you, in plain terms, which candidate to vote for, then it's a political ad and must be paid for out of the candidate's campaign funds, or out of special funds of the political party. Because soft money is not regulated by election laws, companies, unions and individuals may give donations in any amount to a political party for the purpose of party building. Party building may include ads that educate voters about issues, as long as the ads don't take the crucial step of telling voters which candidates to vote for. So these funds are very important to the candidates so that they can get their name out into the public and maybe as an added bonus give the other candidate a bad name to give himself a better chance of getting elected. This is not very democratic at all voting on a president based on what the public sees on the news, because it could be untrue or just bias. Citizens are basically being told who to vote for there is no real politics anymore; it’s just who can control the media better.
Then there are other people who only vote for a person because they are part of their political party. A Political Party is an organized group that attempts to influence the government by electing their members to important government offices. This means that people vote for the candidate on the same side of the political spectrum as they are even if they do not agree with all of their political views. The election could be dependent on what the voter turnout was for each political party, that’s why people should not vote like that. Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election. An election should be about who would be better to lead our country and who has better political views not who is a republican or democratic. That is why a lower voter turnout is not good for America. As we get less voter turnout people will just be elected because of their political party not because they are a better candidate. A high voter turnout is not very good for America either, as the voter turnout grows more people are just voting for the last person they saw on TV, is more popular, or are just randomly picking which wills also not pick the truly rightful winner. So, a middle turnout percentage would be the best for America, so that the better candidate is elected to run the country and hopefully help the country as a whole.