one man, one vote

Examples of one man, one vote in the following topics:

• The 17th Amendment

  • The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution established direct election of United States Senators by popular vote.
  • Before the Supreme Court required one-man-one vote, rural counties and cities were given equal weight in the state legislatures, enabling one rural vote to equal 200 city votes.
  • With direct election, each vote represented equally, the Democrats retained control of the Senate.
  • The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.

• Voting in the Colonies

  • Public office attracted many talented young men of ambition to civil service, and colonial North American suffrage was the most widespread in the world at that time; every free white man who owned a certain amount of property was allowed to vote.
  • Therefore, while fewer than 1% of British men could vote, a majority of white American men were eligible to vote and run for office.
  • Attendance on election days also served as a means of civic education and communal reinforcement of the appropriate, expected behavior of young males.
  • Voting was public, with those running for office thanking their supporters (often treating them to rum in local taverns) after casting their votes.
  • From early on in North American colonial development, Americans were exposed to a high degree of political participation and autonomy in their local affairs.

• The Spread of Democracy

  • During this time, many property restrictions on voting were dropped and new states were added to the Union without these restrictions on voting at all.
  • The fact that a man was now legally allowed to vote did not necessarily mean that he routinely did vote in practice.
  • Similarly, Jacksonian democracy sought greater input to the democratic process for the common man.
  • Unlike Jeffersonians, their emphasis on education was minimal and they demanded elected (not appointed) judges, rewriting many state constitutions to reflect these new values.
  • Andrew Jackson inspired a wave of political participation among "the common man

• Enfranchisement and Its Limits

  • Who is, or who can become, a citizen is governed on a national basis by federal law.
  • Freed African Americans were allowed to vote in only four states.
  • Jacksonian democracy is the political movement toward greater democracy for the common man typified by U.S.
  • Ohio’s state constitution placed a minor taxpaying requirement on voters but otherwise allowed for expansive white male suffrage.
  • New Jersey explicitly restricted the right to vote to white men only.

• Public Choice: Median Voters and Inefficient Voting Outcomes

  • Public choice may not lead to an economically efficient outcomes due to who votes, why they vote, and in what system they vote.
  • The study of voting systems is called voting theory.
  • Since not every voter participates in an election, not every voter will have full information, and not every voter will vote based on what s/he perceives as the best long-term outcome, voting outcomes may be inefficient.
  • It is a paradox because the wishes of the majority can conflict with one another.
  • According to the Condorcet paradox additional methods would be needed to determine the winner since the voting process is complex and each voter provides preferences instead of only selecting one candidate.

• Voting Right

  • Common stock can also be referred to as a "voting share. " Common stock usually carries with it the right to vote on business entity matters, such as electing the board of directors, establishing corporate objectives and policy, and stock splits.
  • However, common stock can be broken into voting and non-voting classes.
  • The matters that a stockholder gets to vote on vary from company to company.
  • Shareholders with the right to vote will have numerous options in how to make their voice heard with regards to voting matters should they choose to.
  • This scene from "The Office" humorously illustrates a shareholder meeting, where the shareholder can exercise their right to vote on company issues or question company directors.

• The Democratization of the Political Arena

  • Jacksonian democracy is the political movement toward greater democracy for the common man, typified by Andrew Jackson and his supporters.
  • Expanded Suffrage: The Jacksonians believed that voting rights should be extended to all white men.
  • However, the Free Soil Jacksonians, notably Martin Van Buren, argued for limitations on slavery in the new areas to enable the poor white man to flourish; they split with the main party briefly in 1848.
  • This position was one basis for the Jacksonians' opposition to the Second Bank of the United States.
  • The fact that a man was now legally allowed to vote did not necessarily mean he routinely did vote.

• Attempts to Improve Voter Turnout

  • Furthermore, compulsory voting may infringe on other rights.
  • Making voting compulsory has a direct and dramatic effect on turnout.
  • Compulsory voting is a system by which electors are obliged to vote in elections or attend a polling place on voting day.
  • Furthermore, compulsory voting may infringe on other rights.
  • requiring companies to give workers some time off on voting day

• The Spread of Segregation

  • It prevented any state from denying the right to vote to any male citizen on account of his race.
  • The grandfather clause was a provision that allowed a man to vote if his grandfather or father had voted prior to January 1, 1867.
  • As no African-American in the South could have voted then, this denied nearly all of the freed men their right to vote.
  • This image was highly influential on later Jim Crow and minstrelsy images.
  • Summarize the voting restrictions and Jim Crow laws implemented during Reconstruction.

• Winning an Election: Majority, Plurality, and Proportional Representation

  • A voting system is a method by which voters make a choice between options, often in an election or on a policy referendum.
  • A voting system contains rules for valid voting, and how votes are counted and aggregated to yield a final result.
  • Proportional representation is an alternative to voting systems based on single member districts or on bloc voting; these non-PR systems tend to produce disproportionate outcomes and to have a bias in favor of larger political groups.
  • The plurality voting system is a single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly that is based on single-member constituencies .
  • This voting method is also used in multi-member constituencies in what is referred to as an exhaustive counting system where one member is elected at a time and the process repeated until the number of vacancies is filled.