Full Coverages>World>US Election>Backgrounder | ||
Q & A: US elections
US voters will go to the polls on November 2 to choose a president, hoping things go more smoothly than last time. Here comes the explainalation of how the process works. Who's running? Short of unforeseen disaster, George Bush will certainly be the Republican candidate, with Dick Cheney once again the vice-presidential nominee. Who are the Democratic candidates? Who has dropped out? Will Hillary Clinton run for president? And apart from the Democrats and Republicans? Because a given candidate may meet election criteria only in certain states, it's perfectly possible to have one set of candidates in, say, Idaho, and a different set in Texas. Can anyone run for president? Is the vice president elected separately? What other offices are up for grabs? How are the final Democratic and Republican candidates chosen? Most states hold direct first-round elections, or primaries. In most cases, voters can select primary candidates only from the political party they registered with, so Democrats choose from a list of Democratic candidates, Republicans from a Republican list, and so on. Unlike being a member of a political party in Britain, in the US joining a party is a simple matter of ticking a box on a voter registration form, and every voter is free to change affiliation as often as desired, or refuse to disclose it at all. Non-affiliated voters cannot take part in these so-called closed primaries. However, a few states hold open primaries, where voters can choose any candidate, no matter the party affiliation. Only a small minority of states hold caucuses, or meetings in which party members choose the state's winning candidates. A caucus requires the party member to be present at the state's meeting - thus investing far more time and money than simply turning up to the nearest polling station - so their popularity has waned. What happens to the winners of the primaries and caucuses? Candidates accrue delegates - or people who will represent them at the national party conferences - as they win state primaries and caucuses. The idea is to come out with the most delegates by the time the national conference rolls around in mid or late summer. The job of the delegates is to choose the official party candidate at the Democratic or Republican national conventions. In practice, delegates simply ratify the person chosen by voters in the primaries and caucuses. Any candidate who looks unlikely to last the course will drop out well before the national convention, sometimes before some of the biggest states have voted. Most simply cannot afford to keep running after early losses. Drop-outs can continue to influence the process by throwing support behind one of the remaining candidates. What happens at the national conventions? These enormous, expensive, back-slapping meetings are organised by the national committees from the respective parties. As there is no question about the Republican candidate, this year's Republican convention - scheduled to begin on August 30, 2004 in New York City - will be a political celebration of George Bush's presidency. Over at the Democratic convention in Boston, the last remaining candidates will gather on July 26, 2004, and will look on as each state calls out the number of delegates it will award to individual candidates. Then, under a heavy shower of red, white and blue balloons, the Democrats will announce their official contender for president. How much does it cost?
"Soft money" donations from corporations, unions and individuals were outlawed after the 2002 mid-term election by the McCain-Feingold law. That's good news for the Republicans, who have traditionally been better at raising smaller amounts from more individuals. The cap on individual contributions is now set at $2,000. Why does it take so long? You could argue - and people have - that in an age of internet access and 24-hour television, a politician should be able to make his or her point to the nation from the comfort of a network news studio, and cut out all that expensive cross-country baby-kissing. What went wrong in 2000? The shenanigans in Florida - hanging chads, butterfly ballots, de-listed black voters - meant the supreme court finally stepped in to put an end to the matter, awarding the state's electoral votes to George Bush. What is the electoral college? Almost all the states operate a winner-take-all electoral system, thus giving winners a much larger margin of victory than they would have through the popular vote. The constitution actually allows electors to cast their vote for any candidates they please, theoretically rendering the whole general election meaningless. Cases of "faithless electors" are rare, however, and there is great pressure on them to represent the choice of the people. Each state is allocated one electoral vote for each member of the House of Representatives, and one for each of its two senators. The District of Columbia is awarded three electors. Why not get rid of the electoral college? The system does under-represent larger states: California has just over 12% of the US population, but its 55 electoral votes for 2004 represent only 10.22% of the total. In contrast, the least populated state, Wyoming, has only 0.18% of the population, but its 3 electoral votes (the minimum) represent 0.56% of the total. Perhaps blaming the electoral college for the 2000 disaster is looking in the wrong direction. Had Florida not single-handedly made the case for international election observers with its shoddy practices, either Al Gore or George Bush could have emerged as the clear winner without the need for a court date. I've won! When do I take office? |
|
||||||||||||||||||