In the United States, presidential elections occur after four years. The election process starts with primary elections and caucuses and then proceeds to nominating conventions. During the nomination phase, political parties select a candidate they will support. After the selection process, the nominated candidate announces a running mate who would end up being a vice president should they win the elections. On the Election Day, the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November, the voters go to their respective polling stations to vote for their preferred presidential candidates (USA.gov, 2018). However, the tally of the casted votes, the popular vote, does not indicate the winner. Rather, the Electoral College chooses the U.S. presidents. The Electoral College amplifies the voice of people and ensures that a candidate who wins the most votes and states becomes the president. As a result, the selected candidate would claim a mandate and lead the nation. In this report, therefore, the author argues that the Electoral College is a viable option for choosing the president.
The Presidential Election Process
Primaries and Caucuses
As noted before, the presidential election process in the U.S. often starts with primary elections and caucuses. The primaries and caucuses are held separately, but they both help in ensuring that states select the political parties’ candidates for the general election. The local and state authorities run the primaries while political parties run caucuses. During caucuses, the participants group themselves based on the candidates they support. Undecided voters, on the other hand, form a group of their own. According to USA.gov (2018), each group provides speeches to support their candidate and to lure others to join them. At the end of this process, the organizers of this event count the voters aligned with each candidate and calculate the number of delegates each candidate has gained. After completing the primaries and caucuses, the political parties proceed to the national convention.
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National Conventions
Most political parties move to national conventions after completing the primaries and caucuses phase of the presidential election process. The national convention also called the nominating convention is a stage during which the various political parties finalize selecting their presidential candidates they would support during the general elections. In most cases, the national conventions confirm the nominee who had already won the maximum number of delegates in primaries and the caucuses (USA.gov, 2018). Nonetheless, if no candidate attained the required number of representatives in the processes above, the national conventions become a platform for selecting the party’s presidential nominee. The presidential nominee also announces his or her running mate at this stage.
Election Campaigns
After each party has selected a single candidate for the presidential post through primaries caucuses, and nomination conventions, they engage in election campaigns. In this phase, the nominated candidates traverse the country to market their plans and views to the general population (USA.gov, 2018). Notably, this process is crucial since it helps them to attract potential voters. In the U.S., for instance, such candidates organize rallies, attend presidential rallies, and print posters in an attempt to win the endorsement of the public.
Politicians explore nearly all media tools to stage their campaigns. In the past, politicians relied on television, radio, and other forms of print media to market their ideas. The internet, however, has resulted in significant change in the way campaigns are conducted not only in the United States but also in other parts of the world. For instance, social networking sites such as Facebook, have also become indispensable tools for staging campaigns. Reports indicate that social media influenced the outcome of the 2016 presidential elections in the United States (Kurtzleben, 2018). According to Kurtzleben (2018), Facebook helped the Donald Trump win the 2016 presidency. In particular, the author indicates that Facebook was used to spread the fake news that tended to favor the incumbent president and taint the image of Hilary Clinton, his primary competitor.
It is also apparent that money influences politics in America. The 2016 presidential campaigns, for example, has gone down the history of the Americans as the presidential election that involved big money (Frumin, 2018). Majority of the nominees lined up billionaire donors to support their dreams. A report by Frumin (2018) shows that 84% of the U.S. citizens believe that money plays a significant role in the U.S. politics. The poll that was conducted showed that 84% of independents, 90% of Democrats, and 80% of Republicans believe that campaign cash has too much impact in political campaigns.
Voting
On Election Day, voters go to their respective polling stations to vote for their preferred presidential candidates. As mentioned previously, the total votes cast, the popular votes, are not used to determine the next president. The president is chosen through a process known as the Electoral College (USA.gov, 2018). Under this system, a nominee is required to win most votes and states. Where the candidate fails to meet the above threshold, the House of Representatives is given the mandate to select the president while the Senate is given the authority to choose the vice president. In the next section, this article provides an in-depth discussion of the Electoral College.
The Electoral College
In the United States, the president and the vice president are not chosen directly by the people. As indicated previously, the Electoral College determines the next president and vice president of the nation. This idea is encapsulated in the U.S. Constitution. The founding fathers of the nation felt that electing the president by popular vote might plunge the country into chaos. As a result, they created a voting system that allowed voters to choose special individuals called electors to vote for the president in their respective states. The number of electors in a state depended on the number of Senators the state contributed. The USA.gov (2018) indicates that each political party in every state selects their potential electors. Nevertheless, the process of choosing the electors varied from one state to the other.
Typically, the votes cast by voters go to a statewide tally. A presidential candidate who emerges the winner in a state gets all the electoral votes. This implies that the party’s electors associated with the candidate in that particular state would cast their vote in the Electoral College (USA.gov, 2018). A presidential nominee needs to garner at least 270 votes to become the president of the United States. Often, this voting takes place in every state on December 19. However, the public can still know the winner on the election night. It should be noted that the constitution does not need the electors to cast their votes based on the popular vote of the state they represent. Nonetheless, it is rare for the electors to vote against their parties and the popular vote of the people they represent.
Special instances exist when a candidate wins the Electoral College, yet he or she lost the popular vote. That implies that a nominee can emerge the winner after winning in some states and attain the 270 electoral votes without necessarily winning the popular votes across the country. In the American elections, such scenarios have happened five times. In 2000, for instance, Al Gore had the most popular voted. However, George W. Bush, who after receiving Florida’s 25 electoral votes had 271 electoral votes, defeated him in the race to the White House (Rudin, 2010). In 2016, Hilary Clinton defeated trump by over 3 million votes. She, however, had won 19.75 states and D.C, while Trump had won 30.23 states (Ingram, 2017). That indicates that Trump had more electoral votes as opposed to Clinton and that explains why she did not become the successor of Barrack Obama. The critics of the Electoral College have used these and more examples to show that the system is undemocratic and obsolete. They have gone ahead to suggest that the country should elect its presidents through popular vote plurality.
Nevertheless, the opponents of the Electoral College need to understand that the system makes it easier to prove the winner. With this system, about 540 electors are required to cast their votes to elect the president. In popular vote election, it is tough to determine the winner in such a large state. For instance, in the 2000 presidential election, it took 36 days after the presidential election was held to declare the winner. The delay arose because of the disputed popular vote in the state of Florida. After the recounting, Bush was awarded 25 electoral votes that made him win the elections narrowly, 271 vs. 267. A report by Byas (2017) indicates that the process of recounting votes in Florida’s counties was hectic to the extent that ballot papers had to be held up to ascertain the intentions of the voter. In that respect, it would be near impossible to conduct elections based on popular votes in all the states in the United States. The Founding fathers understood that the electors would be chosen based on their character, the opinions they express during campaigns, and their independent judgment. They realized that such individuals would make sound decisions when voting. In essence, they would vote in ways that reflect the will of the people and most importantly the interest of the entire nation.
The Electoral College also helps in ensuring that small states are not ignored. Under the Electoral College, the U.S. Constitution requires a presidential nominee to win more states. Such measures force presidential aspirants to travel in all states to sell their manifestos. In so doing, they familiarize with the problems affecting the various states and incorporate solutions in their pronouncements. The popular vote plurality, on the contrary, would make the candidates concentrate on densely populated states and neglect the ones with low population. In the U.S., for instance, over 50% of the population lives in nine major states. The plurality rules would encourage the presidential candidates to focus on a few states where they can get the required threshold. The nine states have about 240 of the required 270 electoral votes. Since the Electoral College expects the presidential nominees to be competitive in many states (271), the candidates would have to visit all the states to appeal to potential voters.
Finally, the Electoral College ensures that presidents have confidence and esteem. A report by Ingram (2017) showed the current electoral system in the United States has only elected candidates who won fewer states only thrice. That is in 1824, 1960, and 1976. However, in other presidential elections, the winner has always prevailed in most of the states. If the president only required plurality support, the winner would regularly be a presidential aspirant who won in a few states, particularly those with more residents. Ingram (2017) states that such practices would weaken leadership since individuals from other states might feel neglected and a country may become divided along cultural lines.
This paper shows that the U.S. has a unique presidential election process called the Electoral College. The process is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Under this system, a presidential candidate is required to win most states and votes. In that regards, the Electoral College encourages candidates to state campaigns in all American states in their quest to become U.S. president. In so doing, the system protects small states from being ignored, strengthens leadership, and makes it easy to prove the winner.
References
Byas, S. (2017). The electoral college: The best way to pick a president. thenewamerican.com. Retrieved on 21 September 2018, from https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/25087-the-electoral-college-the-best-way-to-pick-a-president
Frumin, A. (2018). Money has too much of an influence in politics, Americans say. msnbc.com. Retrieved on 21 September 2018, http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/money-has-too-much-influence-politics-say-americans
Ingram, J. (2017). Electoral College is best was to choose U.S. president. sandiegouniontribune.com. Retrieved on 21 September 2018, http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/sd-utbg-electoral-college-president-20170113-story.html#
Kurtzleben, D. (2018). Did fake news on Facebook help elect Trump? Here’s what we know. npr.org. Retrieved on 21 September 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/04/11/601323233/6-facts-we-know-about-fake-news-in-the-2016-election
USA.gov (2018). Presidential Election Process. usa.gov . Retrieved on 21 September 2018, https://www.usa.gov/election
