Курсовая работа: Presidential еlections in the USA

Minor party presidential candidates face formidable barriers. Whereas Democratic and Republican presidential candidates automatically are listed first and second on general election ballots, minor party candidates must navigate the complex and varied state laws to gain ballot access. In addition, a new party is eligible for federal financing in an election only if it received at least 5 percent of the vote in the previous election. All parties that receive at least 25 percent of the vote in the prior presidential election are entitled to equivalent public funding.

Establishing a general election campaign organization is one of the main tasks of the nominees immediately after the conventions. In recent years, presidential campaigns have been managed by separate candidate-centered organizations, ad-hoc groups assembled for the specific purpose of winning the election [4;260]. After the conventions, these committees are usually expanded from the nominee’s primary organization to include key party professionals and staff from the campaigns of rival contenders for the nomination.

The campaign organization prepares the campaign plan, schedules appearances by the nominees and surrogate campaigners, conducts opposition and survey research, manages the national media campaign, and conducts both voter registration and get-out- the-vote (GOTV) drives. The organization is organized on the national, state, and local levels, overlapping, especially on the local level, existing party structures. The campaign organization seeks to broaden the candidate’s appeal beyond committed partisans, bringing his or her message to the largest number of independent voters possible and to dissatisfied members of the other party.

Campaign plans detail the strategy and tactics which the campaign organizations and candidates hope will bring a winning combination of electoral and popular votes in the general election. They specify the issues to be emphasized by the nominees and aspects of the candidates’ personal image they hope to project to the voters. They include: plans of attack on the platform, issues, and candidates of the opposition; targeting of socioeconomic, ethnic, and religious groups deemed to be most amenable to the campaign message; assessments of the ticket’s strengths and weaknesses in various states; and decisions on which geographic areas the candidates should concentrate in order to assemble an electoral college majority.

Campaign plans, while often quite detailed, tend to be flexible. They seek to anticipate possible events, emerging issues, and fluctuations in voter attitudes, allowing candidate and organization activities to be adjusted or “fine tuned” in order to strengthen the ticket as needed and to most effectively allocate resources.

The contemporary model of presidential candidates crisscrossing the country on campaign tours, participating in a wide variety of political gatherings, is actually a fairly recent innovation in presidential campaign activity.

Throughout the 19th century, and well into the 20th, campaigns were conducted largely at grassroots levels by “surrogates”–party leaders and officeholders who spoke for the national ticket. With a few notable exceptions–in 1896, Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan toured the country by rail in his impassioned, yet unsuccessful, campaign, nominees conducted “front porch campaigns,” staying at home, receiving groups of supporters, and issuing occasional statements to the press [4;42]

A variation of the front porch campaign survives in contemporary presidential electoral politics. Sitting Presidents running for reelection, seeking both to maximize the advantages of incumbency and to project a “presidential” image, are likely to make use of the “Rose Garden” campaign style. They maintain a limited campaign schedule, while carrying out their duties as President. The incumbent makes well publicized use of the perquisites of the Presidency, including the use of the President’s airplane—Air Force One, scheduling frequent announcements and activities at the White House, and delivering grants and other federal benefits in states and localities which, it is hoped, contribute to the reelection effort’s success.

Active campaigning by presidential candidates became more common in the 20^th century. In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt conducted the first modern “whistle stop” campaign, traveling 13,000 miles by train and visiting 36 states. In succeeding elections, the “whistle stop” campaign, in which candidates toured the country by train, delivering speeches from the rear platforms, became a regular fixture of presidential politics. President Harry Truman apparently holds the record, covering 32,000 miles and averaging 10 speeches a day in his successful 1948 election bid [1;1110].

During the same period, candidates made increasing use of air travel, another area in which Roosevelt pioneered. In 1932, he flew from New York to Chicago to accept the Democratic nomination, the first candidate to do so in person. Modern presidential campaigns are almost exclusively conducted by air, with the candidates able to cover both coasts in a single day. Air travel enables candidates to touch base in media markets in different parts of the country on the same day, maximizing their television exposure to voters. Sometimes, the candidates’ appearances are confined to airport rallies, after which the campaign plane flies to another metropolitan area.

Modern presidential campaigns are media driven, as candidates spend millions of dollars on television advertising and on staged public events (photo ops) designed to generate favorable media coverage. The most widely viewed campaign spectacles are the debates between the Democratic and Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates (minor parties are often excluded from such debates, a fact cited by critics who contend that the current electoral process is undemocratic and inimical to viewpoints other than those of the two major parties). First televised in 1960, such debates have been a staple of the presidential campaign since 1976. They are closely analyzed in the media and sometimes result in a shift of public opinion in favor of the candidate who is perceived to be the winner or who is seen as more attractive or personable by most viewers. (Some analysts have argued, for example, that John F. Kennedy's relaxed and self-confident manner, as well as his good looks, aided him in his debate with Richard Nixon and contributed to his narrow victory in the presidential election of 1960.) Because of the potential impact and the enormous audience of the debates—some 80 million people watched the single debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980—the campaigns usually undertake intensive negotiations over the number of debates as well as their rules and format [1;1275].

The presidential election is held on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. Voters do not actually vote for presidential and vice presidential candidates but rather vote for electors pledged to a particular candidate. The electors gather in their respective state capitals to cast their votes on the Monday following the second Wednesday in December, and the results are formally ratified by Congress in early January.

Chapter V. The Electoral College

The question of the manner in which the President was to be elected was debated at great length at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.At one point, the delegates voted for selection by Congress; other proposals considered were for election by: thepeople at large; governors of the several states; electors chosen by state legislatures,and a special group of Members of Congress chosen by lot. Eventually, the matterwas referred to a “committee on postponed matters,” which arrived at a compromise:the Electoral College system. The United States Electoral College is the official name of the group of Presidential Electors who are chosen every four years to cast the electoral vote and thereby elect the President and Vice President of the United States.

Article II, section 1 of the Constitution provides that, “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States shall be appointed an Elector.” Aside from this disqualification, any person is qualified to be an elector for President and Vice President.

Under the 23rd Amendment, the District of Columbia is allocated as many electors as it would have if it were a state, except that it cannot have more Electors than the least populous state. The least populous state (Wyoming) has 3 Electors, so the District cannot have more than 3 Electors. There are currently 100 Senators and 435 Members of the House of Representatives, so the total membership of both houses of Congress is 535. So the total number of Electors is 538. Therefore, in order to win the Presidency, it is necessary for the successful candidate to gain 270 electoral votes (a majority of 538).

Legislation is currently before Congress which would add a congressional seat to Utah, give Washington DC a voting seat, and would therefore give Utah 1 additional Electoral College vote. The total number of Electoral College votes would then be 539, and a majority would still be 270. The additional congressional seat would be permanent, and reapportioned normally after the 2010 census.

The Constitution does not specify procedures for the nomination of candidates for the office of presidential elector. Presidential Electors are nominated by their state political parties in the summer before the Popular Vote on Election Day. The states have adopted various methods of nomination for elector candidates. In some states, such as Oklahoma, the Electors are nominated in primaries. Other states, such as Virginia and North Carolina, nominate Electors in party conventions. In Pennsylvania, the campaign committees of the candidates name their candidates for Presidential Elector. All states require the names of all Electors to be filed with the Secretary of State at least a month prior to Election Day.

The methods of selecting Electors are various. The current system of choosing Presidential Electors is called the "short ballot." In all states, voters choose among slates of candidates for Elector; only a few states list the names of the Presidential Electors on the ballot. (In some states, if a voter wishes to write in a candidate for president, the voter also is required to write in the names of candidates for Elector.)

Before the advent of the "short ballot" in the early twentieth century, the most common means of electing the Presidential Electors was through the "General Ticket." Voters cast ballots for individuals running for Presidential Elector (in the short ballot voters cast ballots for an entire slate of Electors). In the General Ticket, the state canvass would report the number of votes cast for each candidate for Elector, a complicated process in states like New York with multiple positions to fill. Both the General Ticket and the short ballot are often considered At Large or winner-takes-all voting. The short ballot was adopted by the various states at different times.

By far the most popular method of choosing electors after winner-takes-all is selection by the state legislature.The Constitution gives the power to the state legislatures to decide how electors are chosen, and it is easier (and cheaper) for a state legislature to simply appoint a slate of electors than to create a legislative framework for holding elections to determine the electors. However, appointment by state legislature has a serious flaw, aside from its democratic deficit: legislatures can deadlock more easily than the electorate.

Another method for choosing electors is to divide the state up into electoral districts, and the voters of each district get to choose a single elector, much as states are presently divided into congressional districts for choosing representatives. Obviously, this method is prone to gerrymandering.

The "Maine Method" is a mixture of the district and statewide / short ballot modes of selection. It has this name because it was adopted by Maine for the 1972 presidential election and remains in place. Nebraska has used the Maine Method for presidential elections beginning in 1996 [8].In the Maine Method the votes for president are summed for each congressional district. The party winning each district elects one Presidential Elector. Then the vote is summed for the entire state. The party winning the statewide vote elects two Presidential Electors. The Maine Method is actually very old.

Once the voters have chosen the members of the Electoral College, the electorsmeet to ratify the popular choices for President and Vice President. The Constitutionprovides (in the 12th Amendment) that they assemble in their respective states.Congress has established the first Monday after the secondWednesday in December following their election as the date for casting electoralvotes, at such place in each state as the legislature directs.

In practice, the electors almost always meet in the state capital, usually at theState House or Capitol Building, often in one of the legislative chambers. The votesare counted and recorded; the results are certified by the Governor and forwarded tothe President of the U.S. Senate (the Vice President).

The electoral vote certificates are opened and counted at a joint session of the Congress, held, as mandated, on January 6 following the electors’ meeting (or, by custom, on the next day, if it falls on a Sunday); the Vice President presides. Electoral votes are counted by the newly elected Congress, which convenes on January 3. The winning candidates are then declared to have been elected.

There are a lot of problems with respect to the Electoral College. One of the most urgent is the phenomenon of the faithless elector. This is one who casts an electoral vote for someone other than whom they have pledged to elect. On 158 occasions, electors have cast their votes for president or vice president in a different manner than that prescribed by the legislature of the state they represent.

There are laws to punish faithless electors in 24 states. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of state laws requiring electors to pledge to vote for the winning candidate, as well as remove electors who refuse to pledge. As stated in the ruling, electors are acting as a function of the state, not the federal government. Therefore, states have the right to govern electors. The constitutionality of state laws punishing electors for actually casting a faithless vote, rather than refusing to pledge, has never been decided by the Supreme Court. In any event, a state may only punish a faithless elector after-the-fact; it has no power to change their vote.

One more problem is the existence of unrepresented territories. If an American national is a resident of one of the unincorporated territories of the United States (i.e., American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands), he or she cannot vote for electors for President.