I’ve been watching the US election with interest, as it does of course impact on this side of the Atlantic too.
However I’ve got a few questions about how you go about picking your president.
Please help out, here they are:
The Electoral College: My understanding is that each state has a cerain number of delegates to this based on poulation size (is this right?) and that they vote as the elctorate in their state has. Do they throw all their votes behind the candidate with the most votes, no matter how close the election in that state or do they vote according to the proportion that each candidate gets - or is it something else entirely?
You vote with machines apparently: How does this work and why on earth do you trust them? What’s wrong with a ballot paper - why change? Is it the machine’s fault that you had the whole “chads” thing (BTW Chad means arse in London so that was funny to us - especially dimpled chads)
Some people are excluded from voting - ie “felons”. Is this right? If so why? Surely they’ve been punished? How does this get enforced.
Is the voting age the same accross the country?
Can yanks abroad vote by post? If so is it to their home state? If they haven’t got a “home state” what then?
Each state gets one electoral vote for each member of congress. The House of Representatives is more or less population based; the Senate is state based (two for each state). For instance, Colorado has seven members of the House and two Senators, so we have nine electoral votes. Most states operate on a winner take all system; Maine and Nebraska assign a vote to the winner of each House district and two to the statewide winner. (Do a search on “Electoral College” and you will find an abundance of discussion on this.)
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You vote with machines apparently: How does this work and why on earth do you trust them? What’s wrong with a ballot paper - why change? Is it the machine’s fault that you had the whole “chads” thing (BTW Chad means arse in London so that was funny to us - especially dimpled chads)
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It’s mostly justified by speed and accuracy in counting the votes.
This varies from state to state. Some allow felons to vote; some will allow them to vote after they are out of prison; some require that the felon apply for reinstatement; some never allow them to vote again. Again, there’s been discussion on this. It is enforced haphazardly at best.
Yes. 18
Yes, they may cast an absentee ballot in whatever state their U.S. residence was last in.
Each state gets a number of votes in the EC based on population for the most part. IIRC, it’s a complicated formula.
We use machines. Not everybody trusts them, but the fact is that they’re more reliable than people. The problem with chads resulted from individual voters not following directions on their ballots and ensuring that the holes were completely punched out. We found dimpled chads funny, too.
Depends on the state. In some states felons in prison can’t vote, in others anybody conviced of a felony can’t vote. In some state the rules are different from those. No blanked statement can be made.
Yes, eighteen.
In their home municipality. If you’re from Bad Axe, Michigan, then you get an absentee ballot mailed to you and you mail it back. If you residency isn’t registered anywhere, then I don’t know what one would do.
There is no general method. It’s up to the local government, even down to the precinct level. Many places use paper ballots hand marked with pencil or pen, the old bubble sheet. We trust these because the person marks the bubble.
Many machines are mechanical and just used to mark a paper ballot, glorified holepunches. We trust these because people can check the ballot was marked as intended. In the case of the Florida debacle, one of the issues was an allegedly confusing ballot design, so some people claim they didn’t know which hole to punch for the intended candidate. Another problem was incomplete hole punches (dimpled and hanging chads). In many cases these wouldn’t raise an eyebrow, but they were an excuse to contest and recount.
Some places are using wholly electronic voting. Only the naive and ignorant trust these systems, and there is a great deal of protest against their use. The problem is mostly that the people installing voting systems are trying to provide fast accurate counts but they don’t have the qualifications to make decisions about which systems are well designed and which aren’t. It’s a typical procurement problem with enormous consequence. California has passed a law against using some of the worst-designed systems, and hopefully other areas will get clueful before the election, but that topic probably belongs in GD.
Each state decides its own method for apportioning its electoral votes. Every state except two have a “winner take all” setup, no matter how close the results are. However, Colorado votes this November 2 on an initiative to change their system to a proportional distribution of electoral votes, and if the initiative passes, it takes effect immediately.
The use of paper ballots (as opposed to punch cards) as the prime mechanism for tallying votes is generally considered to be too time consuming. The U.S. has a long history of various voting machines. In New England, my town still uses mechanical voting machines that have been in use since the 1950s or 60s. Many voting districts prior to the 2000 election used paper punch cards. (I personally don’t see what is so difficult about having each voter check their card for improperly punched holes before turning it in, but whatever…) Now the push is on for electronic voting machines, but people are just now starting to realize that it would be a nice idea to have paper backups in case of machine failure, hacking, etc.
Whether a felon is allowed to vote is up to the individual states. It is enforced by keeping lists of convicted felons. However, problems with the lists, including law-abiding voters having similar names to convicted felons, has disenfranchised many voters.
The voting age in the U.S. was made uniform with the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1971. It is 18 years of age in all jurisdictions.
Americans who are overseas can vote by mail via absentee ballots. All military personnel have a defined state of residence, generally the state they were from when they entered the military. For example, though I was stationed and lived in New England for over 10 years while in the military, I was legally a resident of Texas (my home state) the whole time. I voted by a Texas absentee ballot. (However, as soon as I left active duty and became a reservist, I immediately had to change my residence to where I was then living.) As far as non-military personnel overseas, most use the state they were living in when they moved overseas, or a state in which they have relatives. There are procedures, I believe, for U.S. citizens permanently overseas, and with no state connection, to vote in federal elections, but I’m not familiar with how this is done.
what specifically is a felon (i’m guessing it’s someone who’s committed a felony)? Do you have to do time to be debarred, if not what is the threshold?
why are they debarred - what is the thinking behind this? As far as I know this is pretty much unique in the western world.
Is this a contrversial issue or are people quite happy with things as they are?
On Machines:
I can see the speed thing - you are a big and populous country, but I can’t see why people trust these things - is there a paper record? (I’m assuming so - those chads again). There have been moves to introduce them over here but it’s not popular (and we get our election results overnight in all but the most remote places)
And one other:
What happens if there’s a tie (is this possible?).
“Machine” does not necessarily equate to “electronic machine.” As nicco said, the machines currently in use are glorified hole punches. In my state (South Carolina), you go to the polling station, show your ID, and the polling workers sign you in. They hand you a ballot, which is a card, and you take it to a voting station, which has a curtain or some other privacy guard. There, you put the card into the machine and flip through the little booklet containing the candidates’ names, offices, proposed ordinances, etc., and use the provided stylus to punch holes in the card through the guide holes in a metal template. When you finish, you remove the card from the machine and slip it into a ballot box before you leave.
The upshot is that – around here, at least – all the machine does is line up the ballot for you and make sure the holes are punched in the proper places instead of between options.
It depends on the system. Punchcards and scanned ballots have a paper record (you recount the cards/ballots). The problem with punchcards are the infamous “hanging chads”: you punch out the hole, but the paper remains attached so the counting device gets confused.
Touchscreen machines have no paper trail, though there is a movement to insist they give a receipt; some states require it.
The method not mentioned (and IMHO, the best) are the mechanical voting machines used in NY, CT, and LA and various counties around the country. They do not have a paper trail, but they are next to impossible to screw with. For this reason, they are being made illegal. :rolleyes:
Yes. It depends on the level:
For presidential elections (and for that only), if there is a tie in the electoral college, then the election goes to Congress. The House of Representatives chooses the president; each delagation votes as a unit, so whoever gets 26 votes is the winner (I’m not sure if a majority is required, so it gets even messier if there are three viable candidates, though that’s unlikely these days). The Senate chooses the vice president. Someone put forth a scenario of a tie where Bush was elected President by the House while Edwards was elected VP by the Senate.
An electoral tie has never happend (for many years, it was impossible, since there were an odd number of electoral votes), though one election (1824, IIRC) went to the House.
In other elections, ties have been known to occur (I recall one for a house district on Long Island in the 60s), though, obviously, it is rare. Usually, the election is run again a second time with the same two candidates.
Depends on what level it’s at. If there’s a tie in any state election, the state has rules to decide. Usually, it’s some sort of random method: In Montana, it’s a coin flip, and I’ve heard that in Nevada, it’s a single hand of five-card stud. This same rule generally applies to all state-level elections, by the way, from minor elected beaurocrats to Presidential electors. If a single candidate for President is unable to get over half of the votes in the Electoral College (this could occur if there are more than two candidates, in addition to ties), then the House of Representatives votes to break the tie, choosing from the top three E. C. candidates, and with each state receiving only one vote, while the Vice President is chosen in similar manner by the Senate. The application of this is not entirely clear, since a state can have many Representatives, who may well be of different parties, and there’s no mechanism specified for choosing which of those representatives gets to vote. Furthermore, it’s quite possible for different parties to have a majority in the House and Senate, which might lead to a split-party President and Vice President being elected.
On your felony question, since it’s a state issue, there are fifty different answers to your question. There’s at least some controversy to it, but it tends to get eclipsed behind other issues like abortion, gun control, and the war.
A Felon is a person who has been CONVICTED on a Felony Charge. If imprisoned, they lose certain civil rights (Voting, Gun Ownership, Free Assembly, etc…). It is part of the punishment, and partly to control the prison population. Some states allow Felons to vote whenever their sentence is done. Some states require the Felon to apply for a re-instatement from the Governor of the state (or a committee under the Governor, more likely) before they can vote. I am NOT sure it the Right to Bear Arms is re-instated.
I do not know if any states REFUSE to allow Ex-Felons to vote, even if they apply and have been model citizens after their sentence is complete.
Firstly: What is a felony - I know it’s a serious crime, but is the level of when, for instance theft, becomes a felony the same for all states? How trivial a crime could get one debarred? Shoplifting? Motoring offence?
Also (and perhaps more controversially) surely this impacts disproportionately on the non-white lower classes as they commit most crimes? Is this not an issue? (Frankly I am staggered by the idea - but then I am not American, and I’m sure you would find some of our ideas a bit barmy).
And finally - isn’t there some kind of right to vote/suffrage in the constitution - so how can it be refused to certain people ? (Here in blighty the only people who aren’t allowed to vote are SERVING prisoners, incarcerated Loonies and the Royal Family - make of that what you will).
Depends on the state, really. For federal law, it’s any crime that can be punished by death or more than one year imprisonment. I think in some states, it’s any crime punishable by any time in prison.
I don’t know about shoplifting, but a driving offense like speeding is a misdemeanor in every state I’m aware of, so that won’t cut it. If you only get a citation for the offense, then it’s probably not a felony.
Please note that I am not a lawyer. As if my useless answer didn’t already give this way.
It does affect them disproportionately. And it does become an issue, unfortunately, only around election time. Then it’s forgotten again until four years later.
There is not really a right to vote, there are merely a few hard and fast rules regarding discrimination. For instance, a state cannot refuse to let someone vote based on race, gender, religion or age (provided they are over 18). They also may not use things like literacy tests, poll taxes, etc. But there is no overall, specified right to vote in the Constitution.
That depends on the state. (Except for federal crimes.) There is no blanket answer that will give a lot of nuance. IIRC, in Michigan a felony is a crime that gets you more than a year in jail or a fine larger than some particular amount. Don’t quote me on that.
In the States many, if not most laws governing individual behavior are made at the state level, and then often at the county level and even local level as well. A crime that’ll get you hanged in one state may get you twenty years in another. In one state you may not have committed a crime but in another state the identical action will get you ten to fifteen years in prison.
There may be rules of thumb; but I don’t really know what they are.
Of course she can’t . She’s already Head Of State and she gets to pick the Prime Minister. What more does she want? (In any case the constituency she lives in is staunch Tory - one more vote wouldn’t really help)
As to the others I Don’t know - prior to the buggering about of the House of Lords it was pretty straight forward - if you were entitled to sit in the HOL then you couldn’t vote in the General election, god knows what goes on now. I know peers (titled, not appointed) can now vote.
Is the presidential elections when you have those minor ballots too - on local stuff and things like gay marriage? Or are they separate?
If they are at the same time; do they have any effect on the result? For example something like gay marriage is likely to be quite emotive to certain groups and as such I assume they are more likely to go and vote on them and would cast a presidential vote at the same time - therebye influencing the result - is this accurate?
Local stuff usually shows up on the ballot for designated elections, either Presidential elections or ‘off-year’ elections (for example: Congressmen are elected every two years, so 2002 was an election year during which ballot items would show up; Virginia elects a governor every four years, but one year off from the Presidential election, so in 2005 there will be a Virginia general election, IIRC).
Absolutely. One generally accepted reason that George Bush Sr. won the state of Maryland in 1988 is because there was a state-wide gun control bill on the ballot, which drew out the rural conservatives who also tended to vote Bush (and who normally wouldn’t bother to vote in what is an otherwise Democrat-heavy state).
Also, on the entire “electoral tie” matter- the only tie that has ever occured was in 1800. At that time, the winner of the electoral college became President, and the runner-up Vice-President. The tie was not between Thomas Jefferson and his opponent, John Adams, but rather between Jefferson and his vice-presidential choice, Aaron Burr. In prior elections, a few electors would vote for a different vice-president to avoid such a sitution, but whether because of poor luck or Burr’s machinations, Burr and Jefferson effectively tied for the presidency, and the matter was resolved by Congress after interminable votes which also resulted in ties.
Okey dokey I now know about Machines (some good, some not so good, some really really bad); Felons (I still don’t get it, but i do get the rules) and some other stuff.
So…Here’s another one: Turnout is likely to be quite low I believe. Are there attempts to boost this? If so what? Are all groups equally likely to vote (for instance in Britain the black vote hardly ever bothers to vote, whereas old people LOVE voting, you can’t stop 'em).
The local initiatives are (in my experience) generally state constitutional amendments and bond initiatives. It depends on the state how much actual lawmaking can be made this way; California, for example, has the proposition system where the electrocate is basically passing laws at the voting booth. (Apologies if this is a simplification.) Looking at my absentee ballot for this election there are three proposed constitutional amendments, 13 bond proposals at the city and county levels, a proposal to amend the city charter to change the pay of the city council, and a proposal to form a city-county unified government out of the City of Albuquerque and Bernallilo County.