RJA #15a: Word Cloud

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RJA #15b: Reflection on What You Learned

This semester has been the most helpful in stretching my ability to find strong research to support my ideas, I have written longer papers before but I have never conducted this much research. This particular paper I used several books as my supporting evidence. I have never been asked to use an actual bound book, but I am very glad I did. Because we were required to use this as a source I checked out at least a dozen books because I thought it was going to be a stretch to just use one. The books were by far the most helpful resources I used and I am very pleased that I learned how to scan the books and find what I need.

Out of the other papers I have written I have not really used an outline either. I was surprised how much creating one helped the organization of my paper. Even though I did not follow the original outline I drew out, it got me thinking of what I was going to put in my paper. This skill of planning will defiantly help me with any other papers I am asked to write.

RJA #14: Annotated Bibliography, Part 2

Allen, Jonathan. The Hill N.p., 31 May 2006. Web. 19 Nov. 2009.

Jonathan Allen is a reporter for POLITICO, a well known political news source that is mainly online. The news articles are used by other news commentators and personalities. I used this article for information on Robert Byrd.

Berns, Walter, 2^nd ed. "A "Complex" System?." After the People Vote. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: The AEI Press, 1992. Print.

Walter Berns is also a professor emeritus at Georgetown University. A scholar of political philosophy and constitutional law, he has written extensively on American government and politics in both professional and popular journals. He is the author of numerous books on democracy, the Constitution, and patriotism. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2005. He wrote a guide to the Electoral College that has been used as an academic standard. The information that I found most useful was used as my rebottles to my counter arguments.

Boyd, Richard W. “Decline of U.S. Voter Turnout: Structural Explanations.” American Politics Quarterly 9 (1981): 133-159.

Richard Boyd is a professor at Cornell University and specializes in the philosophy of almost every kind, especially Marxism. He touched on the trends of voters in the United States. He attempts to find the reason for this. The voting turnout was a section of my paper so this came into good use.

CNN N.p., 2005. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. /results/states/WV/P/00/>.

CNN is one of the most widely listened to cable news sources in the world. The information that I used from CNN is the election data in 2000.

Crewe, Ivor. Democracy at the Polls: A Comparative Study of Competitive national Elections, eds. David Butler, Howard R. Penniman, and Austin Ranney. Washington, D.C.: American enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1981.

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a private, nonpartisan, not-for-profit institution dedicated to research and education on issues of government, politics, economics, and social welfare. This had lots of information on voting statistics and trends, it held more information than opinion.

Gregg, Gary L, ed. Securing Democracy: Why We Have an Electoral College. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2001. Print.

Gary L. Gregg II, Ph.D holds the Mitch McConnell Chair in Leadership at the University of Louisville and is director of the McConnell Center. He is the author or editor of six books. He is an award-winning teacher and has been the national director of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. This book was helpful because besides from being in-depth, it was also somewhat recent in comparison.

Hardaway, Robert M. The Electoral College and the Constitution: The Case for Preserving Federalism. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994. Print.

Robert Hardaway is the author of fourteen published books on law and public policy, and 29 law review articles, reviews, and articles in professional journals. He has written over 75 opinion editorials in national newspapers on issues of law and public policy, and appears frequently on television and in the media commenting on legal issues. His book was one of the most indepth books that addressed several issues on why we should keep the Electoral College.

Information Please N.p., 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. .

Information Please has been providing authoritative answers to all kind of factual questions since 1938, but first began as a popular radio quiz show. Then in 1947 they started to produce an annual almanac, which still currently is released today. They have had a website since 1998. I used the information that they had from the 2000 elections.

Lowenstein, Daniel, narr. The Electoral College and National Popular Vote. FORA.tv, 2008. Film.

Daniel Lowenstein teaches Election Law, Statutory Interpretation & Legislative Process, Political Theory, and Law & Literature. A leading expert on election law, he has represented members of the House of Representatives in litigation regarding reapportionment and the constitutionality of term limits. Professor Lowenstein wrote a text book that is the first text on American election laws since 1877. He was in a debate about the Electoral College where he made five point on why it should stay in place.

McDonald, Michael. United States Elections Project N.p., 2009. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. .

Dr. Michael P. McDonald is Associate Professor of Government and Politics in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from University of California, San Diego and B.S. in Economics from California Institute of Technology. Dr. McDonald has worked for the national exit poll organization, consulted to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, consulted to the Pew Center for the States, served on campaign staff for state legislative campaigns in California and Virginia, has worked for national polling firms, has been an expert witness for election lawsuits in Florida and Washington, and has worked as a redistricting consultant or expert witness in Alaska, Arizona, California, Michigan, and New York. He has worked as a media consultant to ABC and NBC, and is frequently quoted in the media regarding United States elections. His opinion editorials have appeared in The Washington Post, The Politico, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, The American Prospect, and Roll Call.

Miller, Warren E., and J. Shanks. The New American Voter. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. Print.

Warren Miller was known as a renowned scholar and voting expert. He was active in the continuing research on U.S. elections at the Center for Political Studies, which he founded at the U-M Institute for Social Research. His book “The American Voter,” is considered to be the leading original scholarly work that influenced a generation of political pollsters and reporters. He also wrote the 1966 landmark book "Elections and Political Order" and recently extended his past work with a major volume on voting behavior, titled "The New American Voter." In all, he wrote nine books and several book chapters and journal articles. Because this book is a leading original I was able to gather much information because it hit on so many different topics.

Pianin, Eric. "A Senator's Shame." The Washington Post 19 June 2005. Web. 21 Nov. 2009.

Eric Pianin writes several articles for the Washington Post as a news journalist. The Washinton Post one of the largest newspapers in America. It has such a large circulation that it is a newspaper of record, meaning it has authorization by the government to publish public or legal notices. Pianin’s article is where I gathered formal information on Senator Robert Byrd.

RJA #13a: Field Research Report

I conducted a survey that I sent out to a couple hundred of my friends over facebook and classmates. I wanted to test their basic knowledge of the Electoral College.

1. Could you explain the Electoral College to someone else?

39% Yes

61% No

Does the Electoral College have a physical location?

8% Yes

92% No

How many total votes are included in the Electoral College?

41% said 538

25% said 500

25% said 435

8% said 400

How many votes does a candidate have to be secured for him to win?

41% said 270

30% said 251

19% said 218

10% said 201

How is the number of votes a state has determined?

5% said the size of state

77% said the population

20% said the number of senators

Is it possible to win the electoral vote but lose the popular vote?

92% said yes

6% said no

2% said they are the same

Is it possible to win the Presidency but loose the popular vote?

88% said yes

12% said no

49% of respondents were male and 51% were female

71% of the respondents were under the age of 25; 25% between 26 and 50; 4% were above fifty.

RJA #13b: Annotated Bibliography, Part 1

Raskin, Jamin B. "Neither the red states nor the blue states but the United States: the national popular vote and American political democracy." Election Law Journal 7.3 (2008): 188+. General OneFile. www.galegroup.com.

Jamin Raskin teaches Constitutional Law, First Amendment, the Constitution and Public Education, and Legislation. He has written dozens of law review articles and essays and several influential books. In September 2006, he won in the Democratic Primary for State Senate from District 20 in Maryland (Silver Spring and Takoma Park), beating a 32-year incumbent, and went on to win 99% of the vote in the November General Election. Judicial Proceedings Committee, the Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics, the Joint Committee on the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Coast, and the Joint Committee on State-Federal Relations. Raskin’s article is an advocacy for a national popular vote, this helped me with the opposing views.

Robertson, Lori. Fact Check N.p., 8 Jan. 2009. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. .

Lori Robertson is a journalist who covered the media for nine years as an editor and writer for American Journalism Review, a bimonthly media watchdog magazine. At AJR, she won the Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism and an honorable mention in the National Press Club’s Arthur Rowse Award. Previously, she was the administrative director of the Casey Journalism Center on Children and Families, a resource center for journalists covering at-risk kids. She has written for various publications as a freelancer and is a 1993 graduate of Duquesne University with a B.A. in advertising. This page gave me information on the voter turnout rate in the 2008 elections.

Ross, Tara. Enlihgtened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College. Los Angeles: World Ahead Publishing, 2004. Print.

Tara Ross is a lawyer and a regular columnist for the American Enterpise Online. Her work has been published in several law reviews and newspapers, including The Washington Times, USA Today, the National Law Journal, and the Notre Dame Journal of Legislation. She obtained her B.A. from Rice University and her J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law. During her time at the University of Texas, she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Texas Review of Law & Politics. He book, Enlightened Democracy, is one of the most recent books that I found and touched on multiple subjects.

Streb, Matthew J. Rethinking American Electoral Democracy. New York: Routledge, 2008. Print.

Matthew Streb is Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Political Science. His research examines voter decisionmaking in low-information elections, specifically nonpartisan elections and judicial elections; questions related to electoral democracy; and polling. His research has been featured on C-Span’s Washington Journal, and has been mentioned in such places as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Times, Washington Monthly, and Chronicle of Higher Education. I used his information on primary elections.

RJA #12a: Progress Report

What I have done:

I have been able to plan out what my points will be, my outline has helped me decide what I will say and waht sources I need to use. I have looked over a good portion of sources and have enough information to pull from them.

What I need to do:

I really need to continue looking for more sources, mainly books. I have a good list but they are long, I need to set time aside to read over them.

RJA #12b: Presentation Plan

My main plan for my presentation is to give a brief overview on how the Electoral College system works. I will explain why we have it and the objections that people have againts it. I will not argue for it, hopefully just give an unbiased overview. If I argue for the system my presentation will exceed the time limit.