Election System in the United States
The United States has a federal government, with elected officials at the federal (national), state and local levels. On a national level, the head of state, the President, is elected indirectly by the people, through an Electoral College. Today, the electors virtually always vote with the popular vote of their state. All members of the federal legislature, the Congress, are directly elected. There are many elected offices at state level, each state having at least an elective governor and legislature. There are also elected offices at the local level, in counties and cities. It is estimated that across the whole country, over one million offices are filled in every electoral cycle.
Part 1: How the President of the United States is Elected
Part 2: The electoral college explained
Part 3: Levels of election
Part 1
How the President of the United States is Elected
Start with the Constitution. The basic process of selecting the President of the United States is spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, and it has been modified by the 12th, 22nd, and 23rd amendments. Many additional steps have been added over the years, by custom and by state law -- the process has changed quite a bit over time.
Who Can Run? The President and Vice-President are elected every four years. They must be at least 35 years of age, they must be native-born citizens of the United States, and they must have been residents of the U.S. for at least 14 years. (Also, a person cannot be elected to a third term as President.)
How Do the Political Parties Choose Their Candidates? That's up to the political parties. Most political parties hold conventions, which are large meetings attended by "delegates." Some delegates are selected by state "primary" elections, some are selected by state caucuses (very much like primaries, except with public voting instead of secret ballots), and some are chosen for their prominence in the party. A majority of delegate votes is needed to win the party's nomination. In most cases, the delegates let their chosen presidential candidate select a vice-presidential candidate.
Candidates for President and Vice-President Run Together. In the general election, each candidate for President runs together with a candidate for Vice-President on a "ticket." Voters select one ticket to vote for; they can't choose a presidential candidate from one ticket and a vice-presidential candidate from another ticket.
The Electoral College. The national presidential election actually consists of a separate election in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia; in these 51 elections, the voters are really voting for "electors" pledged to one of the tickets. These electors make up the "Electoral College." (In most cases, the names of the electors aren't written on the ballot; instead the ballot lets voters choose among "Electors for" each of the tickets, naming the presidential and vice-presidential candidates each slate of electors is pledged to.)
Each state has the same number of electors as it has senators and representatives (there are two senators from each state, but the number of representatives depends on the state population in the most recent census). The District of Columbia, although it isn't a state, also participates in presidential elections -- it currently has three electors.
The People in Each State Vote for Electors in the Electoral College. In most of the states, and also in the District of Columbia, the election is winner-take-all; whichever ticket receives the most votes in that state (or in D.C.) gets all the electors. (The only exceptions are Maine and Nebraska. In these states, just two of the electors are chosen in a winner-take-all fashion from the entire state. The remaining electors are determined by the winner in each congressional district, with each district voting for one elector.)
The Electoral College Votes for the President. The Electoral College then votes for President and for Vice-President, with each elector casting one vote; these votes are called electoral votes. Each elector is pledged to vote for particular candidates for President and Vice-President. In most elections, all the electors vote in accordance with the pledge they made; it is not clear what would happen in the unlikely event that a large number of electors violated their pledge and voted differently.
Normally, one of the candidates for President receives a majority (more than half) of the electoral votes; that person is elected President. That candidate's vice-presidential running mate will then also receive a majority of electoral votes (for Vice-President), and that person is elected Vice-President.
If There's No Electoral College Winner, the House of Representatives Chooses the President. In the rare event that no presidential candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes, then the President is chosen instead by the House of Representatives, from the top three presidential vote-getters in the Electoral College; each state delegation in Congress casts one vote. (The Vice-President would be chosen from the top two vice-presidential vote-getters by the Senate.)
This is bizarre! Does it really work this way? Yes. There are many arguments pro and con the Electoral College, but this system does guarantee that the person elected President has substantial support distributed throughout the U.S. The Electoral College has also been a major factor in the United States' long-term political stability.
Part 2
The electoral college explained
Millions of Americans voted for Barack Obama as president on Tuesday, but he was in practice be chosen by an electoral college, the somewhat baffling and Byzantine system unique to the United States.
The important thing to remember is that the college is not a place but a process, in which each (presidential) candidate's goal is to reach the winning mark of 270 votes out of the total 538 in the college.
The system does involve real people, called electors, who are distributed among the 50 states and the District of Columbia according to the size of each state's Congressional delegation. These vary greatly: California is the largest with 55, while the likes of sparsely-populated Alaska and Montana have only three.
Although the results are known and declared on the night – barring any legal disputes – voters are in fact only indirectly voting for a president.
The constitution decrees that each state's electors should meet in December (on the first Monday after the second Wednesday) in their state capitals and the cast their votes for president and vice-President.
The electors are typically local political leaders chosen by their parties. In 30 states they are required to reflect the popular will, but in others they have been known to deviate and choose another candidate or make a protest abstention vote.
Most states have a "winner-take-all" system that awards all electors to the winning presidential candidate, although Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of "proportional representation".
The system was designed with two goals. Winner-take-all was intended to strengthen the political clout of the south, which had lower voting populations but economic power. The college's electors were supposed to act as guarantors in case the masses made a bad choice in the eyes of the elite.
The problem is that the winner of the popular vote doesn't necessarily win the electoral college.
In 2000 Al Gore won 500,000 more votes than George W Bush but lost the electoral college by five votes.
Millions of voters can feel somewhat disenfranchised. In 2008, more than five million voted for Senator John McCain in California, but had no impact in terms of the electoral college. The election is always concentrated on swing states where the population is habitually divided between the two major parties.
Criticism on Electoral College
The electoral college has long been criticized, for several reasons. It has been criticized for being undemocratic compared to a direct system of election. Another criticism is that it creates inequality between voters in different states during the presidential election. Usually, only voters in swing states determine the outcome of the election and as a result, it is claimed that the vast majority of Americans, who live in non-competitive states, are largely ignored by political campaigns. If the electoral college were abolished and if the whole country were treated as one district for Presidential elections, then the result would not depend on crucial swing states. It also creates inequality in that the populations of very small states, which have a minimum of 3 Electoral college votes, are overrepresented compared with voters from larger states. For example, Wyoming has a population of 493,782 and 3 EC votes, 164,594 people per EC vote. California has a population of 33,871,648 and 55 EC votes, 615,848 people per EC vote. Abolishing the college and replacing it with a national direct system would also prevent a candidate from receiving fewer votes nationwide than their opponent, but still winning more electoral votes, which last occurred in the 2000 Presidential election. Also, the electoral college discriminates against candidates who do not have support concentrated in several states. In 1992, Ross Perot won 18.9% of the national vote, but received no electoral college votes. The electoral college would require a constitutional amendment to be abolished, and since three-quarters of state legislatures would be required to ratify an amendment that would effectively redistribute voting power from many small states to numerically fewer large states, it is thought that an amendment would fail.
Part 3
Levels of election
The United States has perhaps the most complicated electoral system in the world. Voters are asked to make more decisions and asked to do so more frequently than citizens of other democracies. This Byzantine electoral structure in the US does provide the greatest opportunity for input, but at a cost—by demanding so much of the public it means that many are overwhelmed by the complexity of the system and ultimately fail to vote ("democratic overload").
I. Federal elections
The United States has a presidential system of government, which means that the executive and legislature are elected separately. Article One of the United States Constitution requires that any election for the U.S. President must occur on a single day throughout the country; elections for Congressional offices, however, can be held at different times. Congressional and presidential elections take place simultaneously every four years, and the intervening Congressional elections, which take place every two years, are called Midterm elections.
Presidential elections
The President and the Vice President are elected together in a Presidential election. The election is indirect, the winner being determined by votes cast by electors of the Electoral College. In modern times, voters in each state select a slate of electors from a list of several slates designated by different parties or candidates, and the electors typically promise in advance to vote for the candidates of their party (whose names usually appear on the ballot rather than those of the individual electors). The winner of the election is the candidate with at least 270 Electoral College votes. It is possible for a candidate to win the electoral vote, and lose the (nationwide) popular vote (receive fewer votes nationwide than the second ranked candidate).
II. Congressional elections
Elections to Congress take place every two years. Congress has two chambers.
Senate elections
The Senate has 100 members, elected for a six year term in dual-seat constituencies (2 from each state), with one-third being renewed every two years.
House of Representatives elections
The House of Representatives has 435 members, elected for a two year term in single-seat constituencies. House of Representatives elections are held every two years on the first Tuesday after November 1 in even years. House elections are first-past-the-post elections that elect a Representative from each of 435 House districts which cover the United States. It is correlated with presidential elections or halfway through a President's term.
III. State elections
State law and state constitutions, controlled by state legislatures regulate elections at state level and local level. Various officials at state level are elected. Since the separation of powers applies to states as well as the federal government, state legislatures and the executive (the governor) are elected separately. Governors and lieutenant governor are elected in all states, in some states on a joint ticket and in some states separately, some separately in different electoral cycles.
In some states, executive positions such as Attorney General and Secretary of State are also elected offices. All members of state legislatures and territorial jurisdiction legislatures are elected, state senators and state representatives/assembly members. Nebraska's legislature is unicameral, so only senators are elected. In some states, members of the state supreme court and other members of the state judiciary are elected. Proposals to amend the state constitution are also placed on the ballot in some states.
As a matter of convenience and cost saving, elections for many of these state and local offices are held at the same time as either the federal presidential or midterm elections. There are a handful of states, however, that instead hold their elections during odd-numbered "off years."
IV. Local elections
At the local level, county and city government positions are usually filled by election, especially within the legislative branch. The extent to which offices in the executive or judicial branches are elected vary from county-to-county or city-to-city. Some examples of local elected positions include sheriffs at the county level and mayors and school board members at the city level. Like state elections, an election for a specific local office may be held at the same time as either the presidential, midterm, or off-year elections.
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