The United States of America should dispense with the Electoral College. At present, the president and vice president are selected in a process that does not give equal weight to all voters. Apart from Maine and Nebraska, states select electoral votes based upon a winner-take-all system. Because states have disproportionate populations, the weight of votes is worth more in some states than in others, particularly in swing states (in which no candidate is clearly favored). The campaign process then marginalizes large states that are considered “safe” (such as California for the Democrats or Texas for the Republicans), with candidates focusing instead on swing states, privileging some citizens’ votes over others. Additionally, the winner of the electoral vote will not always necessarily win the popular vote. This is fundamentally undemocratic and unfair, and it must be stopped.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The author claims that the United States of America should change their electoral system in order to make it more democratical and fair, may seem reasonable and well-supported at first glance. However the author relies on evidence that is not completely clear and, thus, in order to strengthen his claim, he should address some questions.
First, while describing how the electoral process works in the country, he made a differentation as he wrote about the Maine and the Nebraska. It is not clear by reading his text what is the plan applied there. This information, if given, could even help the support of his thesis. Suppose for example that these two countries are applying a different kind of system, based more on the equality of votes and, thus, more democratic. In case it is working well it could be an example for the whole United States and it would provide some practical evidence that the implementation of the reccomendation would be in fact reasonable.
In addition, he needs to clarify how many swing states are present in the USA. In case they represented just a small proportion of the others, the problem denounced by the author would not be big enough in order to change the whole electoral system of the country. For these reason in order to raise more credibility he has to give further information about the particulars of the problems experienced by voters from these countries and about how big is their influence from an overall view.
Furthermore, the author should give a deeper explaination of what he was meaning in last-by-one stentence. As a matter of fact, he wrote that in many circumstances the electoral vote is not related with the popular one. In fact it is not clear whether he was meaning that other burocratics changes are applied to citizens votes or he was still focused on his main arhument. For these reason, some questions in order to clarify this point should be asked to the author and they would be again a huge opportunity to increase the trustability of his thesis.
In conlusion the author is not totally wrong when stating that the USA's electoral system should be completely changed in order to guaranteed more equality and fairly. However, he should strengthen more the evidence provided by answering to some question in order to make some points clearer. First, he should give further information for all that concerns the electoring system of the quoted states of Maine and Nebraska since their model could be taken into consideration as the next American's one. In addition he must answer to a question regarding the swing states, providing data about their influence on the overall system, in order to understand if such a drastic change is really needed. Last, the author must explain the meaning of the sentence in which he argues that in some cases the winner of the electoral votes is not the same of the winner of the popular's one. This explaination would make clearer if other burocratic problems occur even after everybody has votes. Only when we would have answered to all these questions, his recommendation would be reasonable.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 526 350
No. of Characters: 2527 1500
No. of Different Words: 224 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.789 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.804 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.687 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 171 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 120 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.048 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.08 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.333 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.513 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.192 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 194, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...ble and well-supported at first glance. However the author relies on evidence that is n...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 80, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...ny swing states are present in the USA. In case they represented just a small prop...
^^
Line 7, column 70, Rule ID: NON_ACTION_CONTINUOUS[2]
Message: The verb mean is usually not used with a continuous form, use the simple form instead. Suggestion: 'meant'
Suggestion: meant
...d give a deeper explaination of what he was meaning in last-by-one stentence. As a matter o...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 70, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...d give a deeper explaination of what he was meaning in last-by-one stentence. As a matter o...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 256, Rule ID: NON_ACTION_CONTINUOUS[2]
Message: The verb mean is usually not used with a continuous form, use the simple form instead. Suggestion: 'meant'
Suggestion: meant
...one. In fact it is not clear whether he was meaning that other burocratics changes are appl...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 256, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...one. In fact it is not clear whether he was meaning that other burocratics changes are appl...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 504, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[2]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: addition,
...ideration as the next Americans one. In addition he must answer to a question regarding ...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, furthermore, however, if, may, really, regarding, so, still, then, thus, well, while, as to, for example, in addition, in fact, kind of, as a matter of fact, in some cases
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 49.0 28.8173652695 170% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 75.0 55.5748502994 135% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2583.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 526.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 4.91064638783 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.78901763229 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73529750108 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 232.0 204.123752495 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.441064638783 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 817.2 705.55239521 116% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.6385726903 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.0 119.503703932 103% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.0476190476 23.324526521 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.47619047619 5.70786347227 149% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.168358697286 0.218282227539 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0565902127386 0.0743258471296 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0508742189385 0.0701772020484 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.107044493597 0.128457276422 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0174354891397 0.0628817314937 28% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.49 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.21 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.