(Redirected from U.S. presidential election)
'United States presidential elections' determine who serves as
president and
vice president of the
United States for four-year terms, 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 elections occur
quadrennially.
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.
Technically, the election is done by
electors who are chosen by vote of the people. 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 1877.
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.
Elections take place every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in 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 does not mean the current system is unconstitutional; it is just not constitutionally protected and individual states do have a right therefore to bar its citizens from voting for President.
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 is not 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 will not 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 did not 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 or
Darth Vader. In any event, a write-in candidate has never won an election for President of the United States.
The 1824 scenario
A 1824 scenario occurs when no candidate receives enough electoral votes to win the election. In such a case, the president and vice president of the
United States 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 second ballot of the
Senate is held to choose the vice president. In this ballot, each senator has one vote. The 1824 scenario is named for the
presidential election of 1824, in which
Andrew Jackson received a
plurality, but not a majority, of electoral votes cast; when the presidential election was thrown to the
House of Representatives, John Quincy Adams was elected to the presidency. 1824 is the only presidential election in which this provision of the 12th Amendment for presidential selection has been invoked. In all other presidential elections since the amendment's ratification, one candidate has received a majority of electoral votes cast.
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 has not 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 had not 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 (
Jimmy Carter,
Ronald Reagan,
George H. W. Bush,
Bill Clinton,
George W. Bush), four have been governors of a state (all except for
George H. W. Bush). Geographically, these presidents were all 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),
Walter Mondale (
1984),
Bob Dole (
1996), and
John Kerry (
2004) all lost their elections.
Results
:''
★ Winner received less than an absolute
majority of the popular vote.''
:'' † Losing candidate received a
plurality of the popular vote.''
:'' ‡ Losing candidate received an
absolute majority of the popular vote.''
; Notes
1. Here a “major candidate” is defined as a candidate receiving greater than 1% of the total popular vote for elections including and after 1824, or greater than 5 electoral votes for elections including and before 1820. (This column may not be complete.)
: Presidents John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur and Gerald Ford served as president but never won an election for president.
: Ford was never elected vice-president.
: Tyler and A. Johnson were never major candidates, not even as incumbent presidents.
: Fillmore was a major candidate, but not as an incumbent.
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 has not 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% |
''Sources'':
Federal Election Commission,
Office of the Clerk,
U.S. Census Bureau
¹ It should be noted that 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 or felons. 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 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). The total number of voters grew, but so did the pool of eligible voters,so total percentage fell.
See also
★
United States presidential primary
★
United States presidential nominating convention
★
United States presidential election debates
★
List of United States presidential elections by Electoral College margin
★
American election campaigns in the 19th century
★
United States presidential election, 2008
External links
★
The American Presidency Project (UC Santa Barbara: 52,000+ Presidential Documents)
★
Over 3000 Links on the Presidential Election
★
Electoral College Box Scores
★
Teaching about Presidential Elections
★
All the maps since 1840 by counties (French language site)
★
Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections
★
A history of the presidency from the point of view of Vermont Discusses history of American presidential elections with two states as opposite "poles", Vermont, and Alabama
★
The Living Room Candidate: A Compilation of Presidential Television Ads
★
Presidential Campaigns - News, Polls and More
★
A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787-1825
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