American History

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American History Between 1868 and 1900, it was evident that some states were, in fact, more important than others in the Presidential election. In all actuality, three states "“ New York, Ohio, and Indiana "“ were the most important. This conclusion can be drawn through a series of steps more commonly known as the scientific method. I will explain these steps, and also summarize points about the importance of the three states previously mentioned.

The conclusion that New York, Ohio, and Indiana are the three most important states is drawn after conducting the scientific method with the information. The first step, of course, is to form a hypothesis about the election. The hypothesis in this case was given as: "Some states were more important than others in presidential elections between 1868 and 1900." Since that is given, the next step would be to think of possible questions that could be asked to get some important information about each state.

The three most important questions about the states were the number of electoral votes (of each state), the states from which the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates came from, and the predictability of the states voting pattern. After drawing the needed information, and going through a process of elimination, the conclusion was drawn that the three previous states were probably the most important. How this was done is as follows. Out of all the states, the ones with a larger number of electoral votes were kept as possible candidates. Electoral votes are the most important part of the election because they basically determine the winner (in most cases). Then, out of the remaining states, the ones with the largest number of Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates move on "to the next round." "Home state advantage" is a key variable in elections.