American presidential elections

[bluflamingo]

I've just started my CJ runs for president fic for femgenficathon, and so I've been reading up on the American presidential election process. Before I screw it up horribly in the fic, can someone confirm that I've understood it correctly please:

1. People decide they want to stand and run around campaigning in various states. Then each party has a national convention, where the states cast their votes for who they want as their presidential candidate. At this point, each candidate already has a vice-president, who may or may not have been campaigning with them (I think - this is where I'm not so clear).

2. Having chosen their candidates for president and vice-president, both parties go off and campaign and there are a series of primary elections which serve... I don't know what purpose.

3. There's a national election and someone is declared the winner.

That's about as much detail as I think I probably need, but can someone please tell me if I've got myself horribly confused?

Comments

[skieswideopen]

I'm not American and so may be corrected by a U.S. citizen later on, but I'm fairly sure that primaries are what they call the elections each party holds in each state in order to pick their candidate. As I understand it, there's a primary in each state where party members (or sometimes everyone who cares to show up, depending on the state) vote, and those primary elections influence or bind the delegates who vote at each part's National Convention.

Then there's the national election, where you've got the popular vote vs. Electoral College thing. (It's actually the Electoral College and not the popular vote that determines the winner.) But you may not need to get into that.

Oh, and I don't think they call it "standing" when people decide to run. Or at least I've never heard that terminology. But again, I'm open to correction by all American citizen/residents.

[bluflamingo]

I'm not American and so may be corrected by a U.S. citizen later on, but I'm fairly sure that primaries are what they call the elections each party holds in each state in order to pick their candidate

That does make more sense, actually, so I'm sure you're right.

I'm definitely not going as far as the national election - I can't wrap my head around the Electoral college thing, it makes no sense to me.

Thanks for the help!

[sid]

Yep, that part's right. For example, I voted in the Indiana primary between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, both Democrats.

And "standing" for office is not an American phrase. You "run".

I'm unclear myself as to at what point the vice-presidental candidates are chosen. I have the feeling it happens at the time of the national conventions, but I could be wrong.

[bluflamingo]

Oddly, I think I actually used "run" in the bit of the fic I've actually written, then came over all British here :)

I'm unclear myself as to at what point the vice-presidental candidates are chosen

In The West Wing, that's when they choose them. I really want CJ to have hers earlier though - I don't want to go past the convention, but I want her v-p to be part of the fic as well. If it's not possible though, I'll have to work around it.

[sid]

I just did some Googling, and saw a phrase that ran something like "the VP candidate is publicly presented at the National Convention" after the party candidate is announced. So certainly preliminary negotiations could be underway much earlier, and I suppose there could be a private selection and possibly agreement made. It would be an awfully hard thing to keep out of the press, though. But that might not be an issue in your story.

[bluflamingo]

Thank you! And no, keeping it out of the press wouldn't be an issue, they're happy for it to be well known who they want.

Thanks for all your help!

[domtheknight]

As far as I remember, this past year Palin and Biden were both announced prior to their conventions. They probably just can't make official appearances as the VP until they're confirmed at the convention. Conventions are mostly ceremonial now anyway.

[bluflamingo]

Thanks! I like the idea of conventions, they look fun to watch, with the balloons and everything. We need something like that over here.

[domtheknight]

They are fun to watch! They're largely celebrations and jumping off points for the rest of the campaign. In the past there were sometimes riots and secret deals and stuff like that, but I think people now generally say that if your convention is too contentious you'll be at a disadvantage going into the main election.

There's a lot of ceremony and tradition, still, and I find that really cool.

[bluflamingo]

I suppose it makes sense that a contentious convention isn't so good - it doesn't exactly inspire confidence - but it does sound like more fun :)

[wordwitch]

In each state, people who want to be candidates have to meet that state's requirements for candidacy. It's often a fee plus a certain number of signatures on a petition.

Then they run in that state by the rules of their specific party, whether that be in primaries (most of us) or caucuses (Iowa). These primaries and caucuses actually elect members of the national party as voters in the national convention. Some states have a winner-take-all policy, and some states divide up the reps based on proportionality.

Importantly: during the primaries, voters HAVE to declare a party affiliation, and then ONLY vote for that party's various candidates.

So then the reps go to the national convention, there is a massive party, and then they take the vote, which is primarily already sealed, BUT if a candidate drops out, his or her candidates may "throw their votes" either to whom their original candidate asks, or to a candidate of their choosing.

You see why close elections, especially with three or more candidates, get exciting.

Candidates may choose their running mates at any point during the process, but the running mate is only official and fixed after the national convention. A lot of us thought Obama might persuade Clinton to run with him, for example.

In the general election, voters DO NOT have to declare an affiliation, and can vote for whomeverthehell we want. But the P&VP come as a matched set: we cannot vote for them separately (no Obama-Palin teams, not anymore!) And again, we're not voting for them directly, we're voting for the electors, but we passed some laws binding the electors to choose the people we told them to choose, after a few mishaps.

[samantilles]

The primaries do elect the convention electors who will ultimately decide who will be the party's candidate, but the convention normally goes the way of the primary elections. Once again, though, it is determined by state, not by the whole population, so someone can win the national vote but lose the electoral election.

In the end, the electoral college also decides the outcome of the final election, not the population.

[bluflamingo]

That sounds like a very complicated way of doing things, to me.

[mecurtin]

That's because it is. Complicated, horribly long, *outrageously* expensive.

The "decide they want to run and campaign in various states" part is called "testing the waters." It is generally signalled by the prospective candidate just happening to show up for a lot of events in Iowa and New Hampshire. To be serious, they need to have a committee of some sort set up at least 18 months before the election, and they have to know where their first $50 million is going to come from.

You definitely need an Ameri-picker on staff for this story, you *will not* be able to get this stuff instinctively.

[bluflamingo]

Don't suppose I could persuade you to volunteer, in that case? :) The actual fic sort of skims over the details of campaigning in favour of the more personal side, but I'm sure you're right that I'm making some horrible mistakes without noticing.

[mecurtin]

The trouble is, I know very little about West Wing. I can do Ameri-picking, no problem, but I would hope that a WW fan would be a better choice.

If you'd like me to look at what you've got, though, no problem! email me at mecurtin at gmail.

[bluflamingo]

It could definitely use Ameri-picking more than West Wing picking at this point, so I'll send it to you with grateful thanks, hopefully tonight or tomorrow. It's due 31st July - I'm cutting it fine, as usual :)

[samantilles]

its complicated because of the initial disparity in population in the original colonies, becoming the first states of the union. Just like congress is set up with two houses to handle the population differences, so is the electoral process. One entire state shouldn't be minimalized, like say Delaware or Rhode Island, because of the massive size and population of California. The founding fathers were perfectly aware of the differences in political thought from both New England and the South, and they wanted to foster those differences and make sure each had their say. The US electoral college was also set up with the knowledge that most of the people voting did not read nor write, unlike today. The electoral college was made up of people who were trusted by their communities to vote as they would have wanted to, and state fealty was much stronger than any national allegiances when the country first started out. It wasn't until the turn of the century where federal politics outshone state politics.

[bluflamingo]

Thank you, that makes it a lot clearer!

[spillingvelvet]

Quick and dirty road to presidential election:

While there are several parties in the US, only two main ones actually ever make it, the Democrats [CJ is one of these] and the Republicans [they're evil. Basically.]

Lots of candidates from each party start out campaigning against each other. Their wills are slowly whittled down by a series of primary elections. Little by little they drop out until there is a clear front-runner. There is a party convention where this front-runner is "chosen" to run for president for the party. This candidate chooses their vice-presidential candidate from the earlier pool.

Then, each party engages in smear tactics and low-blows until the american people are confused and annoyed and choose who they hope is the lesser of two evils. Basically, the whole thing is run by money. The only people who get money from the government are Democrats and Republicans. No other party gets federal funding, and w/o that, they rely solely on private donations.

Don't get me wrong, I love Obama and I am happy that he is my president. But the whole system is a shit-storm of corruption and deceit. If there was a working, functional three-party system, I might love my country a little bit more.

So, that's all I got.

[bluflamingo]

I like this explanation, it makes everything much clearer, and makes me laugh as well :) Thank you!

[spillingvelvet]

LOL, happy to oblige. :D

[scrollgirl]

This has been very educational ;)

[bluflamingo]

Tell me about it! I love that people are so willing to step in and politely explain things to the clueless British girl :)