Political System of USAPolitical System of USA

How does this process work?How does this process work?• The presidential election is actually

51 separate contests.– Each state plus the District of Columbia

administers its own elections.• As a result, the method of voting and the

type of ballots vary greatly.

– The national aggregation of the votes, the popular vote, is meaningless.

• The President and Vice President run together as a ‘ticket’ – voters elect them together.

How the states add up:How the states add up:The 50 states and the District of Columbia are allocated

members of the Electoral College based on their population.

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Candidates must ‘win’ statesCandidates must ‘win’ states• The ballots in each state are counted, and the ticket

that receives the most votes wins the right to select all of the state’s members in the electoral college.

• The electoral college then meets, and the members cast their votes – the winners are declared President and Vice President of the United States.

• This is known as a ‘winner-take-all’ system, in contrast to the proportional representation systems common in other democracies. – No election at any level in the United States is decided by

proportional representation.

What does the winner-take-all What does the winner-take-all system mean?system mean?

• A ticket needs only to receive the most votes (a plurality, not a majority) in a state in order to ‘win’ the electors allocated to the state.

• A ticket needs to ‘win’ a majority of electors in order for its candidates to be declared President and Vice President.

• In the modern era, the ‘magic number’ is 270, half of the 538 electors plus one.

Who can become President?Who can become President?• Since 1947, president have been limited to two terms in office.

Therefore, in 2008, George Bush and Bill Clinton are constitutionally prohibited from running.

• Only certain people are qualified to run for President:– Must be over 35 years of age.– Must be a natural-born citizen (i.e. cannot be naturalized)– Must have been a permanent resident of the US for 14 years.

• In theory, anyone can run for President; however in practice the contesting of a national election requires the infrastructure of a political party.

• Since the 19th century, only two parties, the Republicans and Democrats, have been able to consistently support nationally competitive Presidential tickets. – For this reason, the US is considered to have a two-party system.

Why do certain states matter?Why do certain states matter?

• Even though there are technically 51 separate elections taking place on Election Day, it is impractical for candidates to campaign simultaneously in each state.

• Therefore, the candidate must carefully select where to campaign.

• To do so, careful calculations are made in order to determine which states are necessary to win the majority of electors.

How are the key states decided?How are the key states decided?One way would be to look at the states with

the biggest population (and, therefore, the most representatives.

California: 55 Illinois: 21 Michigan: 17Texas: 34 Pennsylvania:21 Georgia: 15New York: 31 Ohio: 20 N. Carolina: 15

Florida: 27 New Jersey: 15

This adds to 271. In other words, it is possible for a candidate to win the presidency while losing 40 of 51 of the state elections!

Why not simply campaign in Why not simply campaign in these eleven states?these eleven states?

Candidates carefully study historical voting patterns and opinion polling in order to decide in which states to actively contest by purchasing advertising time and making appearances.

Certain states can be expected to deliver large majorities to one party or the other.

It can be reasonably expected that in 2008…It can be reasonably expected that in 2008…

California Votes in U.S. Presidential Elections

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

1988 1992 1996 2000 2004

Democratic Republican

Source: Office of the Secretary of State of California

Texas Votes in U.S. Presidential Election

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

1992 1996 2000 2004

Democratic Republican

Source: Office of the Secretary of State of Texas

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The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden will win California’s 55 electoral votes.

The Republican candidate John McCain and Sarah Palin will win Texas’s 34

electoral votes.

Therefore, it does not make sense for either Therefore, it does not make sense for either candidate to campaign in either state.candidate to campaign in either state.

Only in a few states is the outcome uncertain. These states are known as the ‘swing states’ because a small change in voter sentiment could ‘swing’ the outcome from one candidate to the other.

These states are also known as the ‘battleground states’ because they are the recipients of the most attention by the presidential candidates.

In theory, one vote could decide whether or not a candidate wins all of a state’s electoral votes.

Close margins have occurred: the 2000 election became infamous because George W. Bush won Florida’s 25 electors by 537 votes (a margin of victory of 0.009%).

Which are the swing states?Which are the swing states?

One good way to tell is to track where candidates are appearing and spending money.

Appearances by George Bush or John Kerry in the 5 weeks preceding Election Day 2004.

One dollar sign ($) equals $1 million spent on television advertising by Bush/Cheney or Kerry/Edwards in the 5 weeks preceding Election Day 2004.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/2004CampaignAttention.png

Another way would be to do the Another way would be to do the ‘electoral math.’‘electoral math.’

In other words, assuming that each candidate wins in the states in which they are expected to receive a majority of the vote, which swing states do they need to win in order to achieve a total of 270electors?

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/whos-ahead/key-states/map.html

Red vs. BlueRed vs. Blue• On Election Day in 2000, the major news

networks decided to represent the states won by Democrats with blue and those won by Republicans with red.

• Note that this is the opposite of the color schemes in most other democracies, where the leftist party is represented with red and the conservative party with blue.

This coloration leads to some confusion…This coloration leads to some confusion…

In 2000, did George Bush really win an overwhelming majority?

No – in fact, he received fewer overall votes than his principal opponent, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore.

Moreover, he won only 4 more electoral votes (out of 538) than his opponent.However, he did win more states, although the states that he won tended to

have smaller populations (and, therefore, fewer electoral votes).

A better way to look at the 2000 election.A better way to look at the 2000 election.In this projection, the sizes of the states correspond to their

relative populations. In this projection, small but densely populated states (Connecticut, New Jersey) appear larger than vast but lightly populated states (Montana, Idaho).

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/statecartredblueakhi.png

Compare two statesCompare two states

Wyoming(three electoralvotes)

Rhode Island(four electoral votes)

Original map

Weighted by population http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/statecartredblueakhi.png

Similarly, states can be viewed by Similarly, states can be viewed by the number of electoral votes.the number of electoral votes.

1 block = 1 electoral vote

2004 Election Results

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Cartogram-2004_Electoral_Vote.gif.

However, each state is not However, each state is not entirely ‘red’ or ‘blue’entirely ‘red’ or ‘blue’

Both parties enjoy popular support in all states.Hence, analysts speak of ‘purple’ areas that are neither

Republican (‘red’) nor Democratic (‘blue’)

Votes by county, rated on a scale ofRed = 100% Republican; Blue = 100% Democratic

Source: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

2004 Election

So which are the ‘swing states’?So which are the ‘swing states’?

• Ohio (20 electoral votes): Cleveland (north-east), Columbus (center) and their suburbs are Democratic strongholds, Cincinnati (south-west) and the rest of the state tends to vote Republican.

• Florida (27 electoral votes): Densely populated Miami and Palm Beach (south-east) vote strongly Democratic; Jacksonville (north-east), Tampa Bay-St. Petersburg (center-west) and the rest of the state lean Republican.

• Pennsylvania (21 electoral votes): Philadelphia (south-east) and Pittsburgh (south-west) are Democratic strongholds, the rest of the state tends to vote Republican.

Winner by county in the 2004 election: Because of the number of electoral votes, three

states receive a great deal of attention.

Won by Democrat John Kerry in 2004

Won by Republican George Bush in 2004

Won by Republican George Bush in 2004

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:United_States_presidential_election,_2004,_by_state.

Other ‘swing states’Other ‘swing states’Ranked by the 2004winner’s margin of victory

• Wisconsin (0.38%)• Iowa (0.67%)• New Mexico (0.79%)• New Hampshire (1.37%)• Nevada (2.59%)• Michigan (3.42%)• Minnesota (3.48%)• Oregon (4.16%)• Colorado (4.67%)

Sources: http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Swing_states%2C_2004.svg.

Map of states won in the 2004 presidential election with less than a 5% margin of victory.

However, the question of which states ‘matter’ occupies much of the election-related political commentary.

Therefore…Therefore…

The candidate that wins the swing states wins the election?

How do commentators predict the results?