Anthony Delvalle - blog #2

 

A Written Review of My Reflection

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The History of Our Election Process

    Karis and Kiara focused on following the timeline of the historical development that formed our current election process. The first key component that Karis and Kiara mentioned were the foundations of the American Government and the influences that helped shape our system. For example, Karis and Kiara mentioned the British political systems and the enlighten ideas that massively impacted the route that our current political system took. Kiara and Karis also made sure to include the key events and important documents that changed the system forever. The main impact that Kiara and Karis mentioned was the ability to vote. The very first document that Karis and Kiara started with the articles and also mentioned the constitution. Kiara and Karis emphasized the constitution and how it provided its amendments. In further detail, my partners mentioned significant amendments that included the 15th, 19th and the 26th Amendments giving voting rights to African Americans, women and young adults, respectively. Strongly visible were the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a critical bit of legislation that addressed racial discrimination in voting. My partners ended their section by providing a general summary of key details, trial and error, and more involvement that reflected the current adaptation that the nation was able to utilize. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

America Vs Global

       Josvell made an amazing analysis and comparison of how America and other Global systems conduct their politics. Even though our nations politics were inspired by other nations process, Americas ideals were entirely different in regard to policies such as healthcare, education, and our voting system. Josvell provided an overall insight into the most popular nations and their policies, he also mentioned completely polar policies paint a picture of how different policies can provide different outcomes. Josvell provided both pros and cons of our nation, and other nations differing stances on policies and things such as voting. A very good example discussed in this presentation would be how these systems healthcare tends to be universal, and the government takes more spread steps to reduce inequality. On the other hand, healthcare in the U.S. is kept under purview of private bodies and federal government intervention is limited as there is no tribalism with the aim of welfare of its citizens. One important aspect that was also mentioned is how countries differ on stances such as person freedom, and whether the country is more prone to nationalism, or individualistic which was incredibly interesting to hear about. What I took notice of, is that our election system is unique in the way that our electoral college is categorized more by two parties, and our popular vote in contrast plays a role, but less significant than electoral college. This differs from other nations; some nations have a dictatorship or participate in hereditary selection of a new candidate. In the next section I will write an explanation and reflection of my part.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The election Process

    I Anthony Delvalle, had to complete this section of the presentation. I was interested in finding out exactly how our election system currently works. I found out a lot of valuable information that gave me more insight to our election process. How it works is it starts with primaries, and coccuses. To further explain, what a primary is I will detail my research process and mention step by step how I gained more knowledge on primaries. First, I had to find a layout of our current election system, but to do so I needed a credible source to look to. I soon found a layout that detailed the first and last steps of our democracy, our election process. I had to find a description of the first thing that was on the list which so happened to be something called a primary. What I learned is that selecting our candidates who run is similar to that of a tournament. First, people that are not fit to run as a politician are weeded out through a smaller voting process. These voting processes are called primaries, they can be open or closed. Open or closed primaries means that if it is open, any party can participate in them, if they are closed, only that party can vote. For example, only republicans can participate in republican primaries if the primary is closed. If a primary is open, anyone can participate in it. These primaries are held for both parties where a group of people from one party are put together and they run against each other to get to the official candidate list. Soon after, the candidates are officially selected, and they are put against each other. The candidates have to debate and describe their policies on popular issues. Then, the popular vote affects the electoral college, this means that if most votes are democratic in a state, the electoral college will vote for the democrats. However, if it is majority of the state votes republican, the electoral college sends a vote to red. That being said, the electoral college ultimately selects the candidate to be our newfound president. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Public Opinions

    Katrina and Melissa discussed opinions that people who were educators, engineers, businessmen, and even doctors had on policies. They wanted to know what people of different professions thought about the political system. To understand how they see the election process and the political landscape, they collected responses from individuals who work in business, education, blue collars and healthcare. They found interesting result. Most of the opinions differed depending on what profession the individual was occupying. For instance, educators were prominent and prone to the opinion that education on the civic system and avoiding misinformation was extremely important. What my partners also found was that businesspeople were predominantly concerned with the issue of bettering the economy. What I gathered from this section was that the lifestyle and professions generally had a massive impact on what views the individual might take up. It has also shown me that the election process and the voters describe their priorities and issues through a vote, voting for the individual who is more likely to take care of the issue that they think is more important.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leslie’s Research on Public Opinion and Possible Influence    

        Leslie has the job of researching the influence that media creates on the public’s opinion and the  possible impact this might have on deciding factors when it comes to voting.  An important aspect of modern elections is how the media makes a perception of candidates by using utilities such as newspapers, television, and digital  platforms. To provide the public with instant information sharing Which at times can misinform the public spreading instant but misinformation. Leslie’s research highlighted that while media can inform the public it can also shape opinions and perceptions in ways that impact voting behavior and overall election results based on the information spread about that candidate. Leslie analyzed how news organizations often dictate the information shared to make a certain candidate look bad because they might be opposed to that party due to their ideologies. For example;  left-leaning MSNBC  and right-leaning Fox News. These news outlets tend to favor the parties sharing information that would purposely make a candidate look untrustworthy to favor their candidate.  By researching the statistics of who is consuming this media Leslie found that different age groups and demographics tend to look towards certain networks they find appealing. This often reinforces existing beliefs rather than challenging them with unbiased new beliefs or opinions. This is known as the "echo chamber effect," this effect makes it difficult for voters to find unbiased information that they can rely on due to this new outlet only speaking about their preferred candidate rather than all. On the other hand; Leslie discussed the rise of social media as a platform for political discussion and  misinformation. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are known to hold the most amount of attention when it comes to people's perceptions when it comes to any topic including that of political news, but they also present challenges, such as the spread of false information and echo chambers. Leslie concluded that while media remains a powerful tool for spreading information.  voters need to approach media carefully inorder to possibly gain the most amount of voters by preventing the possibility that their views or perspectives might be mis interpreted.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ORGANIZATIONS

Organizations was done by kyle who had a short, yet good segment that described many of the organizations involved in the political system. Kyle studied organizations and processes that encourage people to vote and determined how to approach voter turnout. But it turns out that a lot of these non profit organizations, such as Rock the Vote and League of Women Voters, are working really hard getting people to vote, especially the folks that maybe don't vote. They educate on voting rights, simplify the process for registration and counter barriers to voting. Something interesting I learned is that some organizations appealed to certain demographics, but there were so many organizations that no group would ever feel left out.