HY 357 Lecture 39: Electing Candidates to Office
6 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Electing Candidates to Office
The culmination of the political process comes on election day when people go into the voting
booths and mark their ballots for the candidates of their choice. Up to this point, most voters
have been passive — they have watched the political ads on television, glanced through the
campaign literature, and tried to keep up with the newspaper, radio, and TV analysis.
Comparatively few have worked on a campaign or contributed money to a candidate.
As noted earlier, incumbents have many advantages when they run for reelection.
Some elections have no incumbent because of resignation, death, or the creation of a
new congressional or state legislative district through reapportionment. These are
called open elections.
Electing a president
One of the most popular misconceptions regarding presidential elections is that voters
directly vote for one candidate or another. What the voters actually do is choose a slate
of electors in their state who make up the Electoral College. There are 538 Electoral
College votes: 100 represent the 2 senators from each state, 435 represent the number
of congressional districts, and 3 were provided to the District of Columbia by the
Twenty-third Amendment (1961).
Although each state technically may decide how to choose electors, almost every state
uses a winner-take-all system in which the presidential candidate with the most votes
gets all of that state's electoral votes. A majority (270) of the votes in the Electoral
College must be won for the candidate to be elected president. If no candidate receives
a majority, the election is decided by the House of Representatives, with each state
having one vote.
The Electoral College has come under particularly intense scrutiny since the 2000
election, because Vice President Al Gore won the most popular votes but narrowly lost
the vote among electors. Furthermore, the closeness of the contest meant that voting
irregularities in Florida, such as confusing ballots, may have cost Gore the election —
and no state's election laws should decide who holds the presidency. On the other
hand, some commentators say that the troublesome 2000 election showed exactly why
the Electoral College system is a good one. In such a close election, representatives of
both parties would have combed through the records everywhere to find more support
for their candidates. With the Electoral College, though, the parties were able to focus
their battle on the legal and practical issues involved in one state's voting. Regardless of
the merits on each side in this debate, ending the Electoral College would require a
constitutional amendment; therefore, it is unlikely to happen.
The coattails effect
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
The culmination of the political process comes on election day when people go into the voting booths and mark their ballots for the candidates of their choice. Up to this point, most voters have been passive they have watched the political ads on television, glanced through the campaign literature, and tried to keep up with the newspaper, radio, and tv analysis. Comparatively few have worked on a campaign or contributed money to a candidate. As noted earlier, incumbents have many advantages when they run for reelection. Some elections have no incumbent because of resignation, death, or the creation of a new congressional or state legislative district through reapportionment. One of the most popular misconceptions regarding presidential elections is that voters directly vote for one candidate or another. What the voters actually do is choose a slate of electors in their state who make up the electoral college.
