Category: Foreign

America is on the march again to choose its President. The Washington Foreign Press Centre’s election-related briefings shed light on the American electoral system. In the first of a series, Dr. Bridgett King of the University of Kentucky’s Department of Political Science breaks down how candidates are selected, reports United States Bureau Chief OLUKOREDE YISHAU. Excerpts: 

The structure 

The United States  has a federalist governance structure, which effectively means that you have voters, who in turn participate in elections and select individuals to represent them.  It also means, though, that powers are divided between central and regional governments – the central government being our federal government, and the regional governments being the state.  Importantly to note that neither one is dependent on the other for power.

But what that means then is that we have a system, particularly when it comes to elections, where there is a lot of variation not only between states but also within states.  And so while we often think about this variation as it relates to how a voter might register or how they might cast a ballot, it also impacts the processes that lend themselves to how we eventually end up with a presidential nominee from two – the two – our two major political parties.

And so just – I feel like everyone’s aware, but – so we do not have a centralised electoral management body.  And so within the 50 states, the rules and structures are very different.  But then if we look at the lowest level of government, so the local level, there’s also 10,000-plus local jurisdictions who are also engaged in processes related to elections and democratic governance.  

And so what that creates is a system where you have varying interests – sometimes competing, oftentimes collaborating – to facilitate elections and democracy in the United States.  

Each state has a chief election official.  There are local-level election administrators, also advocacy organizations.  We can also think about elected politicians who have a vested interest.  There’s traditional media and social media, so all of you.  We also have federal agencies like the Election Assistance Commission, which is not an electoral management body.  And then we also have voting technology vendors who supply resources to facilitate the ability of individuals to register, data management, cast a ballot, et cetera.

And so at the state level, if we consider this variation, the Help America Act – Help America Vote Act, excuse me – required that each state identify an individual or group of individuals who would be that state’s chief election official.  And so again, because we are in this federalist system, there’s great variation with respect to who is in charge at the state level, but also who is in charge at the local level.  

And so in 33 states, voters elect the chief election official, and in most of those states it is the secretary of state.  In six states, the governor appoints a chief election official.  In four states, the chief election official is selected by the legislature.  In seven states, the chief election official is appointed by the state board of elections.  And in 17 states, there is a board or commission that oversees elections in the state or in local jurisdictions.  So again, there’s variation not only in the structure, but also the pathways or mechanisms that facilitate someone being the chief election official in a state.

Primaries and caucuses

 So primaries are statewide elections where voters select a party’s nominee, and caucuses are a system of local gathering that typically occur at a set time and can last for several days.  Now, an important thing to note about both primaries and caucuses is that in the United States, when a voter participates in a primary or a caucus, they aren’t directly selecting candidates from either of the two major parties to advance to the General Election.  Instead, what voters are actually selecting are delegates to in turn choose the nominees at the party’s national convention.  Those nominees who are confirmed or selected at each party’s national convention will in turn be on the General Election ballot in November.  And generally speaking, the larger or more populous a state is, the more delegates they will send to the national convention.  

It’s also worth noting that similar to the way that states and, to a lesser extent, local jurisdictions set the rules for voting and registration with a few federal policies that do guide their decision making, parties set the rules for primaries and caucuses.  And so when we think about primaries specifically, there are different versions – sorry, I went too far – there are different versions or approaches to primaries in the way that voters are able to select delegates.

So the first is an open primary.  And generally, an open primary is one in which a voter in a specific state does not have to choose their political party on their voter registration form, but in effect can opt to vote in either primary when they show up to vote at their polling location during their primary.  

A closed primary system, on the other hand, only allows individuals who are registered with the specific political party to vote in that party’s primary.  So if you’re in a state and both the Republican and Democratic primary are closed, only registered Democrats can participate in the Democratic primary and only registered Republicans can participate in the Republican primary. 

And because we like to keep things interesting, there are also hybrid primaries that are in effect closed to certain individuals or open to some individuals.  And if anyone has questions about this, I can go into it in more detail.  But as an example, if a state – in a state, if there is an option for a voter to be unaffiliated, so to not provide a party affiliation on their voter registration, either primary – Republican or Democrat – may be open to them in the primary, during the primary election.  And so at the end of the day, it’s sad to say – or not sad to say – it just kind of depends on what the rules are for the state and how the rules have been set up by the party.  

Now, as I mentioned, each of our two major political parties, but also third parties, have a party convention, and that is when the political parties assemble every four years to effectively vote and decide who their party’s nominee will be for president in the General Election.  Now, one thing that is important to note is citizens being able to participate in primaries – or caucuses for that matter – and directly contribute to who the nominee from either of the major parties will be is a reasonably relatively new development; specifically in 1965.  But it’s still important to note that even though citizens are able to influence sort of who the nominee might be, parties are private organizations that make their own rules about the nomination process and how it will work at the convention.  And so I’ve also provided the dates for both the RNC and the DNC convention.  

Types of delegates 

There are also different types of delegates, because of course there are.  And so each state, as I mentioned, is allotted a certain number of delegates who vote at the party’s convention.  And typically, the more populous the state, the more delegates you have.  And so there are fundamentally – excuse me – two types of delegates.  We have pledged delegates that are chosen at the state and local level, and those individuals are required to cast a vote at the convention based on the results of the primary or caucus in their state; and then you also have unpledged delegates, and those are delegates who are able to vote for whichever candidate, in effect, that they want to at the party’s convention.  

And so going in to the – our two major party conventions later this summer, here is sort of what the distribution of delegates will look like.  So on the Republican side, there are 2,429 total delegates.  Of those, 2,328 are pledged and 104 are unpledged.  And to secure the nomination, the – a candidate will need 1,215 delegates.  On the Democratic Party side, there are 4,672 total delegates.  Of those, about 3,900 are pledged and 739 are automatic or unpledged – these are also the delegates we call superdelegates.  And the nominee needs to secure 1,968 pledged delegates in order to secure nomination for the Democratic Party.  

So even though we have this idea of delegates, the way they are allocated across the two major party conventions is not the same, and it varies across the states.  So some states use a proportional system, where candidates or delegates are allocated at the same percentage of a state’s votes – a candidate’s vote, excuse me – in the popular election.  So if you got 49 percent of the popular vote, you would get 49 percent of the delegates from that state.  

There’s also states that rely on a winner-take-all system, where the winner – the person – the candidate who wins in the primary or caucus of a given state basically wins all of that state’s delegates – excuse me.  And then there are – there is a hybrid sort of delegate distribution system that is used by the RNC, but for the most part the Democratic Party relies on a proportional system, where the proportion of a state’s popular vote in a primary or caucus that you get is the proportion of delegates that you get at the convention.  

And then lastly, there is always the possibility for a brokered convention.  And a brokered convention would occur when no candidate of a specific political party has received enough delegates in the primaries or caucus to obtain a majority.  And so what effectively happens is after the first ballot at the party’s convention, a nominee is decided through horse trading and continued voting.  

So horse trading is just a complex bargaining or transactions or, for example, political vote trading that might happen at a convention to eventually make its way or for the party, excuse me, to eventually decide on who their particular nominee will be.  And so the last two times we’ve had brokered conventions was Thomas Dewey in 1948 and Adlai – I may be saying his name wrong – Stevenson in 1952.  So brokered conventions do happen, and there are party rules to address them.  But as you can see from those two examples, they are a rarity.  

Elections in early America 

I am currently teaching, for example, a class called Political Participation and the one thing I regularly tell my students is how we got here is a lot of trial, error, and compromise.  And so when you look back, for example, at elections in early America, it was – it could best be described as chaotic.  There were no rules.  There was a lot of violence, and it was unclear who actually was eligible to participate and who was in charge. 

Over time, though, to combat those issues, we moved toward a more formal structure where you have clear geographic boundaries, you have clear administrative structures, you can point to who is in charge.  But again, those decisions exist within this broader umbrella of federalism.  And so because of that, states and local jurisdictions continue to have the freedom and authority to make decisions in terms of who’s in charge, the structure of elections, et cetera, that are supported by or are possibly in the best interest of their voters or the citizens who live within their state.  So the short answer is federalism is why we have a system that is so varied and not very – and not as specific as the voting systems in some other countries. 

Pledged delegates 

A pledged delegate is effectively just a delegate who at the convention has to vote according to or based on the results of the primary or caucus in the state that they are representing.  

When a candidate drops off

If, for whatever reason, both candidates or a candidate dropped out and was unable to proceed on to the General Election, leaning into the regular convention process, what would happen is individual delegates would effectively decide who the party’s nominee would be at the convention, on the convention floor.  And so you can imagine that while both political parties have rules that would structure this process, it would be a messy political battle over who would get the delegates that were awarded to any individual candidate in a state, particularly if those candidates are no longer viable. 

And like you mentioned, yes, the people who could be put forth as potential nominees for a party wouldn’t even have to be individuals who participated in the party’s primary or their caucuses.  So as an example, inherently you might think that if at some point between now and the convention for some reason President Biden had to drop out, you might inherently think, oh well, obviously Vice President Harris would be a top contender.  And that’s possible, but it isn’t necessarily a guaranteed end result.  

And so to your point, though, in a petition to a candidate perhaps making it through the primary and being their party’s presumptive nominee, there are also rules in place so that – to identify a candidate if someone makes it to the convention, is the presumptive nominee, and then for some reason has to leave the race.  So for the Democrats, the Democratic National Committee is empowered to fill a vacancy on the national convention – excuse me, on the national ticket after the convention.  And then for the Republicans, the Republican National Committee could reconvene a convention or select a new candidate itself.  

So the two – so the short version is we don’t know what would happen, if I’m being perfectly honest, but the parties do have procedures and rules in place that would allow there to be a candidate potentially at the end of the convention.  The extent to which there is agreement around that individual or party support or voter support might vary, sort of depending on the mechanics in place at the time.  I hope that answers your question. 

The delegates 

Just like everything – (laughter) – who are the delegates varies.  So mostly the delegates are selected from – they are engaged and involved individuals at the state party level in their state.  So they’re typically people who are very active, very engaged in politics, but not always.  The superdelegates, which only exist with the Democratic Party, are typically members of Congress, governors, members of the Democratic National Committee.  But you could also have members of the Republican National Committee who are also delegates for the Republicans.  So although there is some variation, they are generally people who are interested, invested, and engaged not only in politics but also sort of the trajectory of their party, very committed to thinking about who the party’s nominee is going to be and sort of what that means not only for the future of their party but also for the future of the country.

Swing states 

So swing states are particularly important, on the one hand because they are unknown entities, particularly in the General Election, because they can swing literally one way or the other with respect to our two major parties.  They are also particularly important because of the number of electors that they possess with respect to the Electoral College, and can also swing one way or the other and be the determining factor that sends one candidate to the White House versus another.

Another thing you tend to see in swing states is a lot more efforts to mobilise voters.  There’s oftentimes more media coverage.  Candidates tend to invest more dollars in those states.  And so oftentimes in those states, because they are so important and they do have such a pivotal role to play in sort of what the outcome of the November election is, you oftentimes see turnout higher in those states than you do in others, mobilizing of specific groups in those states at levels that exceed what we see in other states, whether those be young people, people in rural areas, racial and ethnic minorities, et cetera.  

So I’m originally from Ohio, which once upon a time was a swing state.  And so I very much remember sort of all of the energy that would happen in the state around the election.  It always felt like someone was always there, a candidate, at the – leading into the general, or a primary candidate leading up into the state’s primary.  And having lived in several states, I can say from my own personal experience that the energy and the investment of the candidates is very different in swing states compared to sort of non-swing states where you can predict the outcome.