Presidential Elections

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Presidential Elections

• Historically, 1 voter getter become
  President, 2 became V.P.
• Now, President and V.P. run together on same
  ticket
• 12th Amendment changed this

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Current Process

• Step 1- Declare your candidacy
• -Apply to the Fed. Elections Comm.
• -Take steps, in each state, to get name on
  ballot

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Step 2- Presidential Primaries

• An election within a party. Why?
• 1. Get one candidate per party. Why?
• -Dont split your party
• 2. To negate power of bosses
• -Caucuses used in early 1900s were very easy
  to corrupt
• -Primaries could not be corrupted.

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Caucuses

• Caucuses-small group of party insiders who make
  decisions for the party
• -Bosses controlled by
• Intimidating (colored ballots)
• Bribing, blackmail
• Cheating
• This led to changes

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3 Changes that stopped corruption

• Voter Registration- stopped cheating
• Secret Ballot- stopped intimidation
• Direct Primaries
• Open- vote in either party, but only one
• Closed- must be party member to vote
• Blanket- vote in both without penalty.

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Primaries Continued

• Two goals of primaries
• 1. Elect all/some of delegate to Convention
• 2. Show preference vote for President
• Out of power parties always have a harder time
  nominating than in power parties.
• -Why??

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Step 3 National Conventions

• Parties created them no state laws governing
  them, just party rules.
• Held in big cities to bring attention.
• 4-5 days long- many speeches focused on
  supporting candidate
• President candidate is chosen he then
  announces V.P. running mate.

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National Conventions Cont.

• Three main goals of Convention
• 1. Adopt a party platform
• 2. Pick presidential ( V.P.) candidate
• 3. ATTENTION- Publicity
• 4. Unify behind your candidate. Why??
• -Party has just spent several months fighting
  amongst members, but now is the time to unify

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National Conventions page 3

• Q Whom does a party nominate for Pres.
• A Ability to win
• Q What does a Pres look for in a running mate?
• A Balance the ticket (in two ways)
• 1. Geographically- Pull from two parts of U.S.
• 2. Improve your weaknesses
• Exp- McCain should chose a conservative
  because he is not well liked by
  conservatives because of his voting record

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Step 4 Campaign vs. Opponent

• Run against opposing party ( some third
  parties
• -State visits
• -TV and Newspaper ads
• -Sometimes ugly
• Approx. 2 months before election

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Step 5 General Election

• Held on the Tuesday following first Monday in
  November (every 4 years)
• Each state has their own rules of election
• -hours
• -method
• -machine

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Step 6 Electoral College

• In November, we cast a vote know who wins by
  the end of the day.
• However, the vote is not official until the E.C.
  meets votes on Jan. 6 (Not Sun.)
• Electoral voters are chosen by the parties to
  attend the E.C. Who is chosen?
• Must get majority (51) of Electoral votes.
• Magic number is 270! 5353/2 269
• State Elec. Votes to states Reps Sens.

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Electoral College Defects???

• Electoral vote will contradict Popular vote
• -Has happened 4 times in history 2000!!
• -Why/how?
• a) Winner take all feature- If you win Illinois,
  you receive all 34 of their electoral votes
• Exp- 1988, Bush won 50.7 in Ill, but
• If you win 13 states by close margins, and
  lose 37 states by wide margins, you will
  lose the popular vote and win the E.C.

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Winner take all Defect-examples

• 1876- Tilden wins by 250,000 pop. votes, but
  loses to Hayes by 1 Elect. Vote
• 1888- Cleveland wins by 90,000 pop. votes, but
  loses to Harrison by 65 Elect. Votes
• 2000- Gore wins by ????? Popular votes, but
  loses to Bush by ?????? Elect. Votes

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E.C. Defects- continued

• 2. No law requires electoral voters to vote for
  the candidate who carried their state.
• -They are called Broken Pledges
• -occurred 9 times in history
• -Never affected an election, but could.

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E.C. Defects- page 3

• 3. House of Reps breaks non majorities.
• -House of Reps decides Presidency
• -Senate decides Vice Presidency
• -Each state gets one vote
• -What if Indiana had 5 Dem 4 Rep Reps that
  year???
• -Exp-1824- Jackson 40 of Pop. Vote
• J.Q. Adams 30
• -Went to House Adams won