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For the current presidential election see: United States presidential election, 2008
United States presidential elections determine who serves as
president and
vice president of the
United States for a four-year term, starting at
midday on
Inauguration Day, which is
January 20 of the year after the election. The elections are conducted by the various
states and not by the
federal government.
The presidential election occurs .
The most recent election occurred on
November 2 2004.
The next election is scheduled for
November 4 2008. Elections are held on
Election Day—the Tuesday after the first Monday in November of every fourth year.
The current process is an
indirect election. Constitutionally, the election is by
United States Electoral College electors, who are chosen by methods each state individually establishes. The electors can vote for anyone, but—
with rare exceptions—they vote for the designated candidates and their votes are certified by
Congress in early January. The Congress is the final judge of the electors; the last serious dispute was in
United States presidential election, 2000.
How elections are administered
The election of the president is governed by Section 1 of
Article Two of the
United States Constitution, as amended by Amendments
XII,
XXII, and
XXIII. The president and vice president are elected on the same ticket by the
Electoral College, whose members are selected from each state; the president and vice president serve four-year terms. These electors are appointed by mechanisms chosen by each state's legislature (prevailingly, by popular vote of the voters of each state). The individual who receives a majority of votes for president — as of 2008, 270 votes are needed for a majority — will be the president-elect of the United States; and the individual who receives a majority of electoral votes for vice president will be the vice president-elect of the United States. If no presidential candidate receives a majority in the Electoral College, then the
president-elect will be selected by a vote of the House of Representatives, with each state receiving a single vote. If no vice presidential candidate receives a majority, then the vice president-elect will be selected by a vote of the Senate. Although rare, these latter scenarios have occurred twice in America's history; the House of Representatives chose the president in
1825, and the Senate chose the vice president in
1837.
Elections take place every four years on the first Tuesday following the first Monday of November (although in many states early and absentee voting begins several weeks before
Election Day). The elections are run by local election boards who ensure the fair and impartial nature of the election and prevent
tampering of the results.
Neither the constitution, nor the
XII,
XXII, and
XXIII amendments describe the manner for states to select their electoral college representatives. This means then that individual citizens are not granted the right to vote for president by the federal government but rather by their respective state or local governments. This doesn't mean the current system is unconstitutional; it's just not constitutionally protected and individual states do have a right therefore to bar their citizens from voting for President. (
See Disfranchisement.)
Ballot candidates
Voters are required to vote on a ballot where they select the candidate of their choice. The presidential ballot is actually voting "for the electors of a candidate" meaning that the voter isn't actually voting for the candidate, but endorsing members of the Electoral College who will, in turn, directly elect the President.
Many voting ballots allow a voter to "blanket vote" for all candidates in a particular
political party or to select individual candidates on a line by line voting system. Which candidates appear on the voting ticket is determined through a legal process known as
ballot access. Usually, the size of the candidate's political party and the results of the major nomination conventions determine who is pre-listed on the presidential ballot. Thus, the presidential election ticket won't list every single candidate running for President, but only those who have secured a major party nomination or whose size of their political party warrants having been formally listed. Laws are in effect to have other candidates pre-listed on a ticket, provided that a sufficient number of voters have endorsed the candidate, usually through a signature list. Never, however, in U.S. history has a 3rd party candidate for president secured a place on the election ticket in this fashion.
The final way to be elected for president is to have one's name written in at the time of election as a
write-in candidate. This is used for candidates who didn't fulfill the legal requirements to be pre-listed on the voting ticket. It is also used by voters to express a distaste for the listed candidates, by writing in a ridiculous candidate for president such as
Mickey Mouse. In any event, a write-in candidate has never won an election for President of the United States.
Non-Majority Votes
In the
presidential election of 1800, Aaron Burr, Jefferson's vice presidential candidate, received the same number of electoral votes as Jefferson and challenged Jefferson's election to the office. In the end, Jefferson was chosen as the president due to Alexander Hamilton's influence in the House of Representatives. This created a deep rivalry between Burr and Hamilton which resulted in their
famous 1804 duel. After this election, the
12th Amendment was passed to stop a future event like this one.
In the
presidential election of 1824,
Andrew Jackson received a
plurality, but not a majority, of electoral votes cast. The election was thrown to the
House of Representatives, and
John Quincy Adams was elected to the presidency. In this case as well, a deep rivalry was fermented, this time between Andrew Jackson and House Speaker
Henry Clay, who had also been a candidate in the election.
According to the current system, the same one used in the election of 1824, if no candidate wins a majority vote in the electoral, the President and Vice President are chosen per the
12th Amendment. The selection of President is decided by a ballot of the
House of Representatives. For the purposes of electing the President, each state only has one vote. A ballot of the
Senate is held to choose the Vice President. In this ballot, each senator has one vote. If the President isn't chosen by Inauguration Day, the Vice President-elect acts as President. If neither are chosen by then, Congress by law determines who shall act as President, pursuant to the
20th Amendment.
Nominating process
The nominating process of U.S. presidential elections currently consists of two major parts: a series of
presidential primary elections and caucuses held in each state, and the
presidential nominating conventions held by each
political party. This process isn't included in the
United States Constitution, and thus evolved over time.
The
primary elections and
caucuses are run by state and local governments. Some states only hold primary elections, some only hold caucuses, and others use a combination of both. These primaries and caucuses are staggered between January and June before the federal election, with
Iowa and
New Hampshire traditionally holding the first presidential state caucus and primary, respectively.
Like the general election, presidential caucuses or primaries select the candidates indirectly. The major political parties officially vote for their presidential candidate at their respective nominating conventions, usually all held in the summer before the federal election. Depending on each state's law and state's political party rules, when voters cast ballots for a candidate in a presidential caucus or primary, they may actually be voting to award delegates "bound" to vote for a candidate at the presidential nominating conventions, or they may simply be expressing an opinion that the state party isn't bound to follow in selecting delegates to their respective national convention.
In addition to delegates chosen during primaries and caucuses, state delegations to both the
Democratic and
Republican conventions also include "unpledged" delegates who can vote for whomever they want. For Republicans, these include top party officials. Democrats have a more expansive group of unpledged delegates called "
superdelegates", who are party leaders and elected officials.
Presidential election trends
In recent decades, one of the presidential nominees of the
Democratic and
Republican parties has almost always been an incumbent president or a sitting or former vice president. When the candidate hasn't been a president or vice president, nominees of the two main parties have been state
Governors or U.S. Senators. The last nominee from either party who hadn't previously served in such an office was General
Dwight D. Eisenhower, who won the Republican nomination and ultimately the presidency in the
1952 election.
Contemporary electoral success has favored state governors. Of the last five presidents, four (
Jimmy Carter,
Ronald Reagan,
Bill Clinton and
George W. Bush) have been governors of a state (all except for
George H. W. Bush). Geographically, these presidents were from either very large states (
California,
Texas) or from a state south of the
Mason-Dixon Line and east of Texas (
Georgia,
Arkansas). The last sitting U.S. Senator to be elected president was
John F. Kennedy of
Massachusetts in
1960. The only other sitting senator to be elected was
Warren G. Harding in
1920, whereas major-party candidate Senators Andrew Jackson (
1824),
Lewis Cass (
1848),
Stephen Douglas (
1860),
Barry Goldwater (
1964),
George McGovern (
1972), and
John Kerry (
2004) all lost their elections. In 2008, the top three candidates are all Senators, so a Senator will most likely be elected President for the 2009-2013 term.
Results
† Losing candidate received a plurality of the popular vote. » ‡ Losing candidate received an absolute majority of the popular vote.
Voter turnout
Voter turnout in presidential elections has been on the decline in recent years, although the 2004 election showed a noticeable increase over the turnout in 1996 and 2000. While voter turnout has been decreasing, voter registration has been increasing. Registration rates varied from 65% to 70% of the voting age population from the 1960s to the 1980s, and due in part to greater government outreach programs, registration swelled to 75% in 1996 and 2000. Despite greater registration, however, turnout in general hasn't greatly improved.
| Election |
Voting Age Population ¹ |
Turnout |
% Turnout of VAP |
| 2004 |
215,694,000 |
122,295,345 |
56.69% |
| 2000 |
205,815,000 |
105,586,274 |
51.31% |
| 1996 |
196,511,000 |
96,456,345 |
49.08% |
| 1992 |
189,529,000 |
104,405,155 |
55.09% |
| 1988 |
182,778,000 |
91,594,693 |
50.11% |
| 1984 |
174,466,000 |
92,652,680 |
53.11% |
| 1980 |
164,597,000 |
86,515,221 |
52.56% |
| 1976 |
152,309,190 |
81,555,789 |
53.55% |
| 1972 |
140,776,000 |
77,718,554 |
55.21% |
| 1968 |
120,328,186 |
73,199,998 |
60.83% |
| 1964 |
114,090,000 |
70,644,592 |
60.92% |
| 1960 |
109,159,000 |
68,838,204 |
63.06% |
¹ The voting age population includes all persons age 18 and over as reported by the
U.S. Census Bureau, which necessarily includes a significant number of persons ineligible to vote, such as non-citizens, felons, and the mentally incompetent. The actual number of
eligible voters is somewhat lower, and the number of
registered voters is lower still. The number of non-citizens in 1994 was approximately 13 million, and in 1996, felons numbered around 1.3 million, so it can be estimated that around 7-10% of the voting age population is ineligible to vote.
Note that the large drop in percentage turnout between 1968 and 1972 can be attributed (at least in part) to the expansion of the franchise to 18 year olds (previously restricted to those 21 and older).
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