The Election Process

The discussion in class today made me examine the voting system in our country. However, in some ways it only strengthened the beliefs I already had. First of all, no government is perfect nor will it ever be. Secondly, I feel that if a candidate has less than 50% of the vote, but still has more votes than any of the other candidates then that person should become president. Everyone gets one vote and if someone chooses to vote for a third party that may only get 5% of the national vote, then they should stick by their decision. If that same person really wanted one of the top 2 candidates over the other, then their vote should have gone to that candidate in the first place instead of the third party candidate. Just as we talked about today - Hindsight is 20/20 and I'm sure if people could see the ultimate outcome then they may choose a different candidate and/or actually go out and vote if they had not previously. It comes down to the fact of what is the difference between electing a candidate with only 47% of the vote or having a re-election (to get a candidate to have >50% of the vote) knowing that the third party voters really wanted someone else anyway.

However, for the other topic of discussion - should the Constitution be ratified only by a supermajority - I am still undecided. It doesn't make sense that 1/4 of the country can veto something that the rest of the country wants. However, I don't think it is right for a major change to the Constitution to be ratified if only 51% of the country wants that change. Where should the line be drawn?