Updated April 8, 2008

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FOCUS ON … ELECTIONS 2008

Prepared by American Library in South Africa staff

Elections 2008

Introduction

On Tuesday November 4, 2008, Americans will go to the polls to vote for the next President, members of Congress, state governors, and many state-level positions, as well as various state referendums.

Every four years, American citizens in all 50 states and around the world cast their ballots to elect a President.  They also vote for their member of the House of Representatives, who serves a two-year term.  In addition, one-third of the 100 Senators are up for re-election, to serve six-year terms. The House of Representatives and the Senate make up the U.S. Congress.

To become a party's nominee for President, a candidate must win the support of a majority of delegates to the party's national convention in the summer of 2008.  As you will have probably noticed, presidential candidates have already started their campaigns in earnest, hoping to win this nomination.  The first milestone in this campaign are state party-level primary elections.

The Primaries

Democrat Hillary Clinton celebrates her victory in Manchester, New Hampshire

Democrat Hillary Clinton celebrates her victory in Manchester, New Hampshire, January 8 (© AP Images)

Beginning early in the year of the presidential election, states hold party-level meetings (caucuses) or elections (primaries), where voters choose their candidate among all the contenders within each party. This is the process which separates the wheat from the chaff, eventually narrowing the field to one candidate for each political party.

What is the difference between a primary and a caucus?

A caucus is a meeting at the local level in which registered members of a political party in a city, town or county gather to express support for a candidate. For statewide or national offices, those recommendations are combined to determine the state party nominee.

See also: How Raucous Is the Caucus?

A primary is a state-level election in which voters choose, by ballot, one candidate among all the contenders within one party. A primary may be either "open" — allowing any registered voter in a state to vote for a candidate to represent a political party, or "closed" — allowing only registered voters who belong to a particular political party to vote for a candidate from that party.

See also: Primary Elections Explained

Delegate Selection

When voters elect a candidate at a caucus or a primary, they are actually electing a delegate who will vote for that candidate at the party convention. Although the formulas vary by state, the percentage of the vote won by a candidate in a primary election generally determines the percentage of delegates from that state who will go to the convention to vote for that candidate. States with larger populations have more delegates. State political parties set the rules for delegate selection and apportionment.

The delegate system has changed over time.  It used to be that party elites handpicked delegates during caucus meetings.  Only since the 1960s has the voting public been able to participate in this early selection process, through primary elections.

This year, because of the competition among states for the earliest (and therefore most significant) primary and caucus dates, the political parties have punished some states, including Florida, for scheduling their primary dates earlier than the rules allow, by stripping them of their delegates to the conventions. In effect, these states will thus be holding “beauty contest” primaries.

Background reading

2008 Primary Election Calendar

In 2004 just nine states voted before Feb. 5. In 2008, more than 30 states will vote before or on Feb. 5, including delegate treasure troves like California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey.

JANUARY 2008
  • January 3: Iowa
  • January 5: Wyoming (R)
  • January 8: New Hampshire
  • January 15: Michigan
  • January 19: Nevada, South Carolina (R)
  • January 26: South Carolina (D)
  • January 29: Florida
FEBRUARY 2008
  • February 1: Maine (R)
  • February 5: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho (D), Illinois, Kansas (D), Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico (D), New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia (R) (State nominating convention for delegate selection)
  • February 9: Louisiana, Kansas (R), Washington (Party caucuses for delegate selection: GOP selects 51% of delegates; Dems select all delegates)
  • February 10: Maine (D)
  • February 12: District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia
  • February 19: Hawaii (D) (Hawaii's GOP will hold its state convention on May 16-18; delegates are selected during a week-long process), Washington, Wisconsin
MARCH 2008
  • March 4: Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont
  • March 8: Wyoming (D)
  • March 11: Mississippi
APRIL 2008
  • April 22: Pennsylvania
MAY 2008
  • May 6: Indiana, North Carolina
  • May 13: Nebraska, West Virginia
  • May 20: Kentucky, Oregon
  • May 27: Idaho (R)
JUNE 2008
  • June 3: Montana, New Mexico (R), South Dakota
On the Web:

Party Conventions

In presidential election years, after the conclusion of state primaries and caucuses, the political parties gather to select a presidential nominee – usually the candidate who secured the support of the most convention delegates, based on victories in primary elections. The presidential nominee usually chooses a running mate to be the candidate for Vice President, but the presidential nominee can throw open the vice presidential selection process to the convention delegates without making a recommendation.

Another major function of a convention is the adoption of a party platform containing the party’s positions on issues of the campaign.

The article in Wikipedia on the US presidential nominating convention notes that in modern times, with candidates in effect selected during the primary season, it has become customary for the losing candidates to compel their delegates to vote for the winning nominee, as a sign of party unity.

The dates of the two major political party conventions are:

The Electoral College

The President and Vice President are selected through the electoral college system, which gives each state the same number of electoral votes as it has members of Congress. The District of Columbia (which is not a state) also gets three electoral votes. Of the total 538 votes, a candidate for President must receive 270 to win.

In other words, on November 4 (the first Tuesday in November), when Americans go to the polls, they will not be voting directly for President and Vice President. Instead, they will essentially be recommending to the electors in their state, who they think should be President and Vice President.  The electors make up the Electoral College, which is not a place, but a process that began as part of the original design of the US Constitution.

The Electoral College was established by the founding fathers of the United States as a compromise between election of the President by Congress and election by popular vote. The people of the United States vote for the electors, and then the electors then vote for the President. In nearly all states, electors have to vote unanimously for the candidate who wins the popular vote in that state (exceptions include Maine, which has a district system for choosing presidential electors, and Nebraska).

More populous states have more members of Congress, and therefore more electoral votes. So if Candidate A is selected by both Wyoming (3 electoral votes) and Utah (5 electoral votes), but Candidate B is selected by Texas (34 electoral votes), Candidate B is ahead, since Texas carries more electoral votes.

The Electoral College system is somewhat controversial (particularly after the 2000 elections when Al Gore won the popular vote, but George W. Bush won the electoral college vote). Thomas Jefferson called it “the most dangerous blot on our Constitution.” The USINFO electronic journal, THE LONG CAMPAIGN: U.S. ELECTIONS 2008 presents two sides of the argument in its chapter, “Has the Electoral College Outlived Its Usefulness?”.

See also: National Archives Electoral College site

Selected Links

General
Candidates
Polls
  • Real Clear Politics
  • Polling Report
    “An independent, nonpartisan resource on trends in American public opinion” this site provides polls not just on candidates, but on how Americans feel about a variety of different issues, from the economy to national security.