I would like to share, the election process in America (or USA or US) with the help of Discussion between persons called Alpha, Beta & Gamma. Although I am not an expert of this, but like to share some of my thoughts. I think you guys take this sporty.
Beta: It’s 2016 & a election year. Where Donkey& Elephant fight between themselves to find out who is biggest (& popular) Donkey& Elephant? Now this Donkey& Elephant select one co-ordinate that will support Donkey or Elephant to become a President for four years.
This Donkey & his partner are called as one ticket, for ease of understanding we can called it as D-Ticket. And Elephant & his partner are called as one ticket, for ease of understanding we can called it as E-Ticket.
People vote for D-Ticket’s or E-Ticket’s representative called as Electors. And these Electors choose who will become the president for next four years. These Electors vote for D-Ticket or E-Ticket. If elected Donkey gets more vote from Electors, he/she will became President & vice versa.
Alpha: Wait wait, it’s totally confusing. And who are those Donkey& Elephant. I didn’t understand.
Gamma: Ignore him, Beta always does that. Anyway, coming to the point there are two major party in US, one is Democratic Party & other is Republican Party. Donkey is a symbol of Democratic Party whereas Elephant is a symbol of Republican Party.
There are some small parties who take participant in election, but we will talk about only this two party. The election runs around a one year.
Alpha: What one year. Means every president will have only three year out of possible four.
Gamma: No, it’s not like that, President get complete four year. It’s actually a complicate system. I will try to explain just a bit of it.
Both Democratic Party & Republican Party will have five to ten presidential candidates. And the delegates of Democratic Party will choose one presidential candidates & delegates of Republican Party will choose one presidential candidates. And this process run roughly between January to June of election year.
Alpha: Okay, citizens choose these delegates & delegates choose presidential candidates. It means there will be two presidential candidates (as we are talking about two major party) & citizens choose one president out of two.
Gamma: No, actually it is a little complicating than that. Yes you are right, citizen chooses the delegates. The delegates are the VIP of that party they might be Mayor or Stare Representative or officials.
There are also super delegates who choose presidential candidates. Super delegates are the top member of party such as Congressman & former president. So, Democratic Party has their delegates & super delegates who choose one Democrats presidential candidate. Same will be applying for Republican Party.
Alpha: Okay got it. But who are those delegates? Who choose them?
Beta: Citizen chooses the delegates via either by Primaries or Caucuses. If you are a register citizen of Democratic Party or Republican Party you can cast a vote under Primaries voting system. And if Citizen chooses the delegates via debate or discussion, then that system is called as Caucuses. Every state can choose which system to follow Primaries or Caucuses
Alpha: Actually it is confusing.
Gamma: Yes a little bit. What we have discussed till now is, delegates & super delegates choose a Presidential candidate. This one part is over.
Now there will be a candidate from Democratic Party and another candidate from Republican Party. Usually out of this two candidate, the candidate who gets more votes from electoral, will become the President. People choose an electoral & this number of electoral chooses the President for next four year.
Alpha: Okay. But there are some questions in my mind. Like how many electoral are there? Suppose there are 538 electoral out of which 300 are representative of Republican Party and remaining 238 are of Democratic Party. Then is there a possibility that, a Presidential candidate of Democratic Party will win? Means if the Presidential candidate of Democratic Party is somehow success to convince majority of electoral to vote for him/her did he/she will become the President? I just take this as an example this could be vice versa. Or there is a rule that, electoral of Democratic Party will only vote for Democratic Party & vice versa.
Gamma: No, I don’t have that detail knowledge about that. Did you have any idea about this?
Beta: No.
I think you guys know better than me.
I will come with lot more interesting topics like this. Till then, keep updating your knowledge. B’coz your knowledge (& use of that knowledge in right direction) is your biggest asset.