Fixing The Voting System II

The U.S. national government does many things for its citizens. However; not all of these things are done well. For instance, many U.S. citizens do not vote. Although there are many reasons why someone may not turn out to vote, responsibility for this should be placed on the U.S. government.

Accessibility is an issue that has often come to light. The effort it takes to register to vote, the traffic to get to one of the few voting locations, or even the education involved in making a decision is too much for some people. In addition, the notion that one’s vote will not make a difference is a real idea that circulates in the population.

According to this reputable research center: In 2016 only 55.7% of the voting-age population actually voted. 86.8% of registered voters voted.

This means that many people who could register to vote…aren’t!

The U.S. Government needs to change its methods of voting; considering better political education, better registration methods, and better voting systems.

For example, implementing an electronic voting system, rather than the typical written system, could eliminate the issue of time, traffic, and location. Not to mention, ballot accuracy scandals and recounts.

This radio discussion from BBC talks about the use of electronic voting in the 2016 U.S. election compared to other countries. It is mentioned that cyber security is certainly an issue for many Americans when deciding whether to vote, however the turnout was better despite this fact. So, theoretically, as the security measures improve, this system will be significantly better than previous methods.

As well, this CNN article ties the Russian hacking attempts to a study done by local hackers trying to infiltrate the system. Although the local team was able to hack the system, the article mentions that the system has been developed to protect against these newfound vulnerabilities; however this was a non-issue for the foreign hackers previously, considering there was no breach.

To conclude, 55.7% of the voting-age population does not include all the voices of this country.

The game needs changing. 

U.S. Governments Needs Better Voting Systems

The U.S. national government does many things for its citizens. However; not all of these things are done well. For instance, many U.S. citizens do not vote. Although there are many reasons why someone may not turn out to vote, responsibility for this should be placed on the U.S. government.

Accessibility is an issue that has often come to light. The effort it takes to register to vote, the traffic to get to one of the few voting locations, or even the education involved in making a decision is too much for some people. In addition, the notion that one’s vote will not make a difference is a real idea that circulates in the population.

According to this reputable research center: In 2016 only 55.7% of the voting-age population actually voted. 86.8% of registered voters voted.

This means that many people who could register to vote…aren’t!

The U.S. Government needs to change its methods of voting; considering better political education, better registration methods, and better voting systems.

For example, implementing an electronic voting system, rather than the typical written system, could eliminate the issue of time, traffic, and location. Not to mention, ballot accuracy scandals and recounts.

55.7% of the population does not include all the voices of this country.

The game needs changing. 

Source: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/15/u-s-voter-turnout-trails-most-developed-countries/

Political Analysis in Blogs

“State Of Disgrace”

     This October 19^th post to The Huffington Post by Scott Patton outlines recent reactive acts of President Trump regarding the deaths of four special forces soldiers in Niger. It has been accused that the President called the families of the fallen soldiers and claimed that the soldiers “knew what they were signing up for…” after their deaths. Patton attempts to argue why this makes President Trump into a “state of disgrace”.

     Firstly, it can be observed that the author of this post is very much in support of the opposition of Trump in this situation. He describes the soldiers as “brave” and “honorable” and describes Trump as “disgraceful” and “tarnishing”. Although Patton does a great job of using strong, descriptive language, he lacks the evidence to support these claims. He quotes that Trump said “If you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls” but has no reference as to when or where this quote took place. Additionally, he inserts this quote from the New York Times:

“Mr. Trump’s assertion belied a long record of meetings Mr. Obama held with the families of killed service people, as well as calls and letters, dating to the earliest days of his presidency. Before he decided to deploy 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, President Obama traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to greet the coffins of troops.”

     With no context, one cannot find this quote or the article it originates from.

At one point, Patton asks, “What will it take for Americans to reject Trump and his administration? What will it take for the patriotic, honest and heroic public servant to end service to Trump and party for service to country? What will it take – the republic in ashes, destined to become a contemporary Greek tragedy?” With these questions, he makes it clear that he believes Americans need to essentially wake up from state of disgrace, but with no evidence how can one even claim it is a state of disgrace?

This is certainly an opinion-based post.

Original Post:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/state-of-disgrace_us_59e911e3e4b04a400db8aff1?section=us_us-news

Political Analysis in the Media

“Trump keepsundercutting one of his central arguments for overhauling the tax system”

This political analysis by Philip Bump was posted to the Washington Post as of October 5. The article makes the argument that President Donald Trump is acting inconsistently to the data he presents.

First, Bump presents a Tweet posted by the President that states, “Stock Market hits an ALL-TIME high! Unemployment lowest in 16 years! Business and manufacturing enthusiasm at highest level in decades!” He confirms that this is true with a graphical comparison of unemployment rates from the Federal Reserve.

Secondly, he highlights a Tweet by Gizmodo’s Matt Novak, who claimed how unusual it was to be pushing tax cuts that are being sold as boosting unemployment. As well, Bump claims that Trump “cited employment as a specific goal of the policy” during the speech that announced the tax proposal.

Bump includes an excerpt from the Federal Reserve stating:

           

“Even in good times, a healthy, dynamic economy will have at least some unemployment as workers switch jobs, and as new workers enter the labor market and other workers leave it. The lowest level of unemployment that the economy can sustain is difficult to determine and has probably changed over time due to changes in the composition of the labor force, and changes in how employers search for workers and how workers search for jobs.”

He claims that perhaps President Trump’s tax cuts could create a large amount of total people in the labor pool, thus altering the statistics. This could account for some of the baby boomers that “are hitting retirement age and, well, retiring.”

All-in-all Philip Bump does a great job of relaying evidence in a clear and concise way that is easy for the reader to understand. He includes clean graphs and imbedded links to throughout the analysis. On the flip side, there is not a lot of contextual information regarding the details of the tax proposal that would lead into his overall arguments. He also writes of a speech, given by the President, as a source of evidence; however the point could have been made clearer if mention had been made of the exact quote or location of the quote within the source.

Overall, this analysis was pleasantly presented, but could have been more specific in the retrieval of data.

Original Analysis: 

 <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/05/trump-keeps-undercutting-one-of-his-central-arguments-for-overhauling-the-tax-system/?utm_term=.e621c1188d71>

Online Voter Systems - Hacked

“Federal government: Connecticut was a target of electionhacking” is an article that is about Connecticut and twenty other U.S. states being notified of a possible security breach of their online voter registration systems. Last Friday, these states were notified by the federal U.S. Department of Homeland Security that during the presidential campaign last year, Russian government agents scanned the online system and attempted “hacking efforts.” Although it appears that the attempts were unsuccessful, they are being investigated federally, instead of by the states themselves. The tone of this article suggests that it is possible that the hacking attempts may have been purposefully in favor of the election of President Trump. This article is an interesting read, as it contributes to our previous topic in this class about technology in government. For states that are using online systems for voting and registration, “hacking attempts are not uncommon.” This poses issues that cause the federal government to step in and take over for the states.

Greetings

Hello to everyone in U.S. Government!