Every four years the political atmosphere of the United States of America is thrown into frenzy as candidates jockey to become the next President of the United States. Since President Barrack Obama is finishing up his second-term, the maximum allowed by the law, a new person will be sworn in to the office of President on Jan. 20, 2017.
Although the U.S. is known as a democracy, the process for electing a new president is more complicated than simple popular vote.
Primary Elections:
Two political parties dominate politics in the United States: the Republican and the Democratic. Beginning in January both parties began their “primary season.” The primary season lasts until around June.
During the primary season, candidates within the two main parties battle for their party’s presidential nomination as voters in each state select party delegates who in turn pledge support to a particular candidate.
The candidate who wins the most state delegates will win their party’s nomination. For example, so far this year Iowa and New Hampshire had their primaries.
Currently Republican Donald Trump leads in the Republican Party with 375 delegates, while Democrat Hilary Clinton is leading the Democratic Party with 652 delegates.
How delegates are allotted differ for each state. As International Business Times describes it: “Delegates are very important in presidential primaries because they are the people who will choose each party’s nominee at national conventions this summer.
Democrats award delegates proportionally based on congressional districts and some other areas, meaning that only big wins change the delegate count a lot.
On the Republican side, some states have winner-take-all primaries, meaning only one candidate will get delegates from that state, so the non-Trump candidates are hoping to slow the front-runner’s progress before they get to those later this month.”
After the primaries are over the two candidates, one from each party, along with any independent candidates (no party affiliation) begins the real battle for president.
General Election:
Although the U.S. is widely known as a democracy, its presidential election is not a clear-cut popular democratic vote. What this means is that voters do not directly elect their president.
Voters choose “electors” known as the Electoral College, and these electors pledge to one or another candidate. Each state has a certain number of electors to the college, which is based on the size of its population.
The winner of the popular vote in that state gets all the Electoral College votes in that state, except for Maine and Nebraska.
California has the most electoral votes with 55, while five different states have the lowest with three. Hawaii has four electoral votes for president.
The candidate who receives a majority of electoral votes, which is 270 or more, wins the election and becomes the next president of the United States.