How Are Presidents Elected?
By D. A. Sharpe
Once every four years (Leap years) is a national
political convention season, whereby each of the primarily major parties
(Democrats and Republicans) determine who will be their candidates in the
November national general elections for the office of President and Vice
President. Many people may not realize the various ways such a nomination
process can happen. Presidential General Elections in our future are
2020, 2024, 2028, etc.
Each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and
a small handful of U.S. Territories, all send a quota of delegates (mainly
based on population) to the respective National Conventions of a Political
Party. Republicans have five Territories, and the Democratic Party has five
slightly different territories. These delegates are determined when YOU
participate in the Primary Election process of your state. This is done in several different ways
among these states, territories and in DC (jurisdictions).
Primaries among these jurisdictions have two basic
methods to vote: Registered Voters
cast votes at a public election polling place, or Registered Voters attend a
county caucus (convention) to vote. There are 22 states out of the 56
jurisdictions that hold primary caucuses in counties. All Primary Elections
take place anywhere from February to May, as determined by state law.
Primaries among these jurisdictions have three
different criteria to determine WHO can vote in the election poll or in a
county caucus. Here are the three kinds of ways:
1. An
open primary jurisdiction means any registered voter of that state may
choose in whichever political party primary election he or she wishes. When you
register to vote in those jurisdictions, you are not asked with which political
party do you identify (Democrat, Republican, or independent). ThatŐs the way it
is in Texas. The only way your ever reveal your political party identity is at the voter poll. After your voter registration is
validated you to vote in that election, you tell the election clerks which
party ballot you wish to use. You can vote for candidates only on one partyŐs
ballot. You canŐt vote for President on one partyŐs ballot, and for other
candidates on another partyŐs ballot.
2. A semi-open primary
jurisdiction is a situation where in that jurisdiction, you must declare
a party identification (Democrat or Republican) or be independent when you register
to vote. In most states using this method, you must be a registered voter a month or more before a primary election.
Semi-open means that only the registered voters for that party may vote using that partyŐs
ballot, AND any independent registered voters may choose one partyŐs
ballot in a particular primary election.
The Independent voter may not vote in more than one partyŐs
primary election. This is true both for election poll voting or county caucus voting.
3. A closed primary
jurisdiction is one in which only the previously registered voters of that political party may vote in that partyŐs ballot or in that partyŐs
caucus. No other registered voters may participate in that partyŐs
primary.
County Conventions: Each state holding elections have county
conventions, usually the evening of the election day. Any registered voter who cast a vote in
that PartyŐs Primary Election may attend that county convention. Those conventions primarily elected
among themselves those who will represent that county at that PartyŐs State
Convention.
Representation generally is determined by population
of the county, and is set by state or Party regulation. They also may vote to send resolutions
to their PartyŐs Convention, which are expressions of advocacy for one issue or
another. In states that hold only
Party Caucuses, this also is generally what they do.
The respective jurisdictions (counties) tally votes
when they conduct State Political Conventions in the early summer. At the State
Convention, various delegates at those conventions run for election to
determine WHO gets to represent the stateŐs qualified delegate count at the
national convention. In Texas, we have 3 delegates and 3 alternate delegates
elected for each of the 31 state senatorial districts, plus a handful of
uncommitted Republican elected officials. The Democratic party in Texas has
more uncommitted delegates. Each National Party has its own rules about the
numbers of delegates qualified to represent it at its PartyŐs National
Convention.
It didnŐt happen often, but itŐs possible when a
multiple number of candidates exist for the Presidency, and no one candidate
acquires the needed majority before the National Convention of that Political
Party, several rounds of votes will take place until one candidate achieves a
majority delegate vote. In the Republican Party, for example, that majority
threshold is 1,237 delegates. For the Democratic Party, itŐs 2,381 Delegate
votes. It is unusual for multiple rounds of votes to be needed at a national
convention.
The rules say that all the delegates must cast the
vote for the presidential candidate who earned delegate votes in their stateŐs
primary in the first round of voting. In the second round of voting, if no majority
is reached the first time, most delegates are freed from having to vote what
they did the first time. In a handful of states, its delegates are also bound
to vote the same way in each of the first two rounds, then they are free to
change their votes, if subsequent votes take place.
Details in table form for all jurisdictions of both
parties are displayed at:
https://ballotpedia.org/Types_of_delegates
What are the best reasons for the legislators of a
state to legislate a specified voter registration process and whether to have
all-day voter polls operating, versus a central county location for a caucus
(convention) of registered voters?
First, I think voting at poll locations, available
all day (plus the two-week early voting opportunity) is the best way to include
the most people in voter participation. This is how we do it in Texas! The
negative for having a county caucus, convening only in the evening, reduces the
number of registered voters who to attend, versus the voting poll method.
The reason some support the caucus idea is to keep
the less-serious voters from having a say in the primary election process. It
keeps out the riff-raff!
My advocacy is that the more voters being able to
participate, as we do in Texas, the fairer and more accurate is validation of
the primary election process.
Should voter registration be open, semi-open or
closed? The open method we have in Texas motivates more people, I feel, to take
voting action on primary election day. Had it been semi-open registration or
closed registration, that takes away the opportunity for voters to change their
minds about in which political party they now wish to participate. Sometimes,
the voter registration deadline is far enough ahead of a primary election that
some voters may not have realized their sentiments were changing, and they
wished to vote in the other partyŐs primary.
With these explanations, I hope most of the readers
will appreciate the way we do it in Texas É.
An open voter registration and open primary elections at public election polls,
with availability of early voting. This is how the political parties determine
who will be their candidates on the National General Election. That election is the first Tuesday in
November, following the first Monday.
In
todayŐs competitive political world, itŐs easy to perceive that both these
political parties (and the few small parties) view the opposing party or
parties as grossly wrong and representative of negative values. The truth probably is that each Democrat
and each Republican believes they are advocating for the best good for all the
people. ItŐs just that each have
differing views about how best that good is accomplished.
It
is legal for a third party to exist in the United States (or even more), but no
third-party effort in the past couple of centuries has been successful. The 1992 Presidential General Election is the only
Presidential election that represented a significant impact by a third party or
an independent candidate. The
incumbent President was George
H. W. Bush,
running for his second term in office as a Republican Party candidate. The challengers were the Democratic
Party candidate, Bill Clinton, and independent candidate H. Ross
Perot.
In
the 1992 Presidential Election, Bill Clinton won that election with 43% of the
vote, but with 370 electoral college votes (only need 270 electoral college
votes to win). The one-term
incumbent George H. W. Bush received only 37% of the vote, along with only 168
electoral college votes. H. Ross
Perot received 19% of the vote, and no electoral votes. The remaining 1% were various write-in
candidates, etc.
The
impact that Mr. Perot had was that probably the great majority of his votes
were from voters of the more conservative views that would have voted for the
Republican candidate, if Mr. Perot had not been in the race. That would have given the incumbent
Republican President Bush a 55+% of the votes, and most likely enough electoral
college votes to have won a second term.
Mr. Perot became the probable reason Mr. Bush did not serve a second
Presidential term.
It
is possible in the Electoral College to win the election with 270 or more
Electoral College votes, yet not achieve a majority percent of the popular vote.
The
Presidential election of 1860 pitted Abraham Lincoln, John C. Breckenridge John
Bell and Stephen A. Douglas. The
issues surrounded those which led up to the War Between the States (known
generally as the Civil War).
Lincoln won with 180 electoral votes, versus 72 electoral votes for
Breckenridge, 39 electoral votes for Bell and 12 electoral votes for
Douglas. However, Lincoln won only
39.8% of the popular vote, whereas Breckenridge won 18.1%, Bell won 12.6% and
Douglas won 29.5%
So,
the U.S. President is elected after going through all the process outlined in
this document. My hope is that it
helps voters to understand how that works.
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