feelgood

What does this "Primaries" mean? Does it mean actual election, or is it just party members trying to choose which of the candiates to represent the party?

So far, I'm looking at that Obama has won 8 states while Clinton won 6 but at the same time, she is predicted to win more votes (delegates?) than Obama, so which of the indicator does the party go with to choose for the elections?

Edit: Also from CNN (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/candidates/), near the top it says that democrats candidates need 2025 delegates to win and with Clinton at the top with 299, how's that even possible?? Same for the republicans

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Willravel

It's how democracy is taken. States are assigned a given amount of delegates based on population. If, during the primaries, a candidate wins a state they get all the delegates. Whoever gets the most wins and we all lose because the popular vote is something we get to read about in history books.

telekinetic

It's not the real election, it's the party elections to see who's going to be in the real election.

As far a delegates versus states versus votes...who knows what's the best indicator. Wait till it's all over.

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feelgood

If its the number of states won that really counts....so, from CNN.com, why are they placing focus on how many delegates the candidates can win rather than how many states they can win/won?

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Willravel

Because New York has 41 delegates and Idaho has like 1.

feelgood

From what you said in your first post willravel, say the USA has only 3 states, New York, Idaho and Kansas. New York has 41 delegates, Idaho has 1, and Kansas has 1. If Clinton wins New York while Obama wins Idaho and Kansas, does that mean Obama is selected to run for President for the Democrat party?

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filtherton

Democratic primaries/caucuses divide up delegates based on the proportion of votes a candidate received while republican primaries/caucuses are winner take all.

Get a majority of delegates and you get to slap your party's logo on all your campaign literature.

dc_dux

The presidential candidates are elected by their respective party at the national conventions in the summer.

Primaries, for the most part, are a relatively recent phenomenon to make the process to select the delegates to attend those national conventions more inclusive. Before 1968, most states did not have primaries, but had elections for party delegates that most voters ignored.

Now the primaries put a face on the delegate selection process, the candidates visit more states and as a result more people participate. When you vote for Clinton (or McCain), you are in effect voting for her (his) delegates to attend the national convention.

In the Democratic primaries, the awarding of delegates is proportional, so that a candidate can lose the popular vote and still win delegates....a candidate who loses 51%/49% will get the same number of delegates as the winner (eg, Clinton won the vote in Nevada, but Obama got more delegates because he beat Clinton in districts he won by more than he lost to Clinton in districts she won)

The Republican party has many winner-take-all primaries, either statewide or by Congressional district....so a candidate can win 51/49 and the loser gets no delegates.

If all that makes sense

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feelgood

Ok, I'm kind of getting it. Last question, what happens in the presidential elections? Does one win by getting more popular vote, or by more districts/states?

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dc_dux

The president is elected by the Electoral College.....only in America !

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filtherton

Or the supreme court.

Willravel

OH SNAP! The truth hurts, dubbuyuh.

MSD

I'll expand a bit on the Democratic side. Each state has a certain number of pledged delegates who are appointed with the understanding that they are required to cast their vote based on the popular vote in the state. There are also a number of Superdelegates, who either hold political offices or are party members, who are not bound to voting for a certain candidate (getting superdelegate support was what got Howard Dean an pre-primary lead in '04.) Candidates must receive at least 15% of votes to be represented by pledged delegates
Each state is represented in the electoral college by a number of electors assigned based on population. 24 states have laws allowing for punishment of electors who do not vote for candidates who win the popular vote, but it's never happened. Electors are technically free to vote for any candidate, the original intent being the protection of the people from a candidate who gains popularity but would be harmful to the country (theoretically, it could prevent something like Hitler's popular election; it probably wouldn't work in practice.)

Ustwo

Gore lost Florida, get over it.

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Mojo_PeiPei

The college walks the fine line between invalidating popular support and preventing oppression by the masses.

I blame the two party system more then anything.

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loquitur

Actually, guys, the system in both parties varies by state. Dems don't have any winner-takes-all states, but the proportional representation is done differently in different states. I believe some allocate by overall vote total in the state, while others allocate based on a district-by-district vote. Reps don't allocate completely by winner-takes-all; again, it varies by state. Some states have a winner-takes-all system based on the overall state totals, some have a form of proportional representation.

The electoral college is a completely different creature. Sneer if you like, but the thing was set up to make sure that the large states wouldn't always dominate the selection process, which would yield a president acceptable simultaneously to both a large segment of the population and a large proportion of the country geographically. Like most of the rest of the American system of government, it was deliberately designed to be complicated. You can argue about whether it was a good idea to do it that way, but what the founders were trying to accomplish is actually fairly well known.

Leto

So, I gather that the delegates do the voting in the primaries. Do they play a role in the actual election in November? What or who does the average person vote for in that election? Do they vote for this "Electoral College" which then represents them?

I know that in my federal election, I vote for the delegate in my riding representing the party that I wish to support. If this party has the majority of delegates elected, by riding, they are the ones who win the election. Each riding is supposed to be based on population.

loquitur

no, the delegates attend the convention at which they nominate the candidates for the general election. The delegates are allocated based on the voting in the primaries.

The electoral college comes into existence solely to vote for president. The electors are chosen based on voting in the states.

SecretMethod70

Wow, between will saying that if "a candidate wins a state they get all the delegates" (100% untrue for Democrats) and the lack of thorough explanations here, I'd come away from this thread more confused if I were not from the US.

I'm going to go backwards, for the sake of clarity. Also, for the sake of space and time, I'll mostly avoid the explanations for why things are done this way: that debate has been going on ever since the beginning of the country.

In November, we have our presidential election, which is technically decided by the Electoral College. To understand the electoral college, you must understand that we have two legislative bodies - the House and the Senate. Each state gets 2 senators, while the number of representatives in the House is based on population. The number of electors who represent any given state in the Electoral College is the same as that state's number of House representatives and senators combined. For example, my home state of Illinois has 19 representatives in the House, so we have a total of 21 electoral college votes. In the November general election, the person who wins a state gets all that state's electors, regardless of how much they won by. There are a few states which have changed their rules so that electors are given proportional to the vote in that state.

So now, what about the primaries? The primaries are for the parties to decide who their candidate will be. We have two major parties: the Republicans and the Democrats. In November, one Republican will face off against one Democrat, but for now the primaries are trying to decide who those people will be. The way the candidates are chosen for each party is by delegates. They each have a convention in the late summer/fall of the election year, and the delegates gather there and vote on who should be the candidate. The number of delegates a state has is based on population and determined by the national parties, which is why the Democrats and Republicans have a different number of total delegates for their respective conventions. Those delegates are mostly chosen based on how primary voting goes.

Primaries are run by the state parties, so different states do have different rules. In some states, in order to vote in a party's primary, you must be registered with that party. In others, primaries are open to independent voters. One thing that remains true is that you cannot vote in more than one primary (i.e. you can't vote in both the Republican and Democratic primary). Delegates are allocated differently between different parties and states. In the Republican party, many states award delegates in a winner-take-all fashion, much like the electoral college electors are awarded in the general election. So, for example, in West Virginia Huckabee won 52% of the vote while Romney won 47%. Huckabee therefore gets all 18 of West Virginia's delegates. The Democrats, on the other hand, generally award delegates proportionally based on either county or voting district (I'm not exactly sure which). This is why, for example, even though Obama won Alabama 56% to Clinton's 42%, Obama only got 20 delegates while Clinton got 21. Based on the degree to which Clinton won, and the areas in which she won, she managed to get 1 more delegate than Obama, despite losing by 14% statewide. Some states, such as California, have a mixture of methods. Most of California's delegates are awarded proportionally based on the district or county (again, I forget which), but there are also a handful of California delegate positions which are awarded proprtionally based on the statewide vote.

It's important to note, before I continue, that the delegates are different people for different campaigns. So, if Obama wins in an area, one set of people go to the convention, whereas if Clinton wins in that same area, a different set of people go to that convention. At the convention, those people are required to vote for their candidate in the first vote to elect a nominee. So, the pledged delegates for Edwards still have to vote for him at the convention even though he has dropped out. A candidate requires a majority of delegates to win the nomination though, so if no winner is declared after the first vote, delegates can change who they vote for. So, for example, if neither Clinton nor Obama gets a majority of the delegates going into the convention, the Edwards delegates would get a chance to vote for the person they believe to be the better candidate. This is why it's important to remember that the Edwards delegates are Edwards supporters, not just any random person. If Edwards endorses one of the candidates, for example, that could hold significant sway over who they vote for.

This gets a little more complicated once you add in the superdelegates. In the Democratic Party, about 20% of the total delegates are superdelegates: party members who are not pledged to vote in any particular way. Superdelegates are made up primarily of Democrats who hold office or work within the party leadership. Many of them have not yet said who they plan to support, but many also have. Currently, about 200 superdelegates have come out in support of Clinton while about 100 have come out in support of Obama. It's important to remember that they can change their minds at any time.

The Republicans also have non-pledged delegates, but to a much smaller degree.

I'm sure I've missed details here and there, so feel free to ask more questions, but I hope that cleared some things up.

In short:

Primary voters vote for delegates who vote for general election candidates at the party's national convention.
General election voters vote for electoral college members who then vote for president.
It should also be noted that the overall results almost always mirror the popular vote.

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loquitur

SM70, that was a great summary. Well done!

Question for our posters who are from outside the US: what is the general view of the contenders for the US Presidency? I know the US political process does get watched from abroad in some detail, so I was wondering what the commentary was on the people who are running.

fastom

Like you have a choice between only bad or worse. No good candidates are taken seriously. A flawed system that leaves no doubt how imbeciles like Bush can land the leadership of the country.

connyosis

Swedes like the democratic candidates (No surprise since we're very liberal by American standards), and between them I'd say Obama is the favorite. He is seen as the fresher of the two, someone that might make more of a difference than Clinton. Still, people wouldn't mind Clinton as president either. It's about time a woman became president.

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Elphaba

Applause to SM70!

Super Tuesday took three days to sort out because of all of the variations that occur in each state and their party rules for allocation of delegates.

Timing of a state's primary or caucus has also become relevant this year. For the first time in my memory, Washington state is a player in delegate selection. Typically, the party nominee has already been chosen before we have a chance to vote.

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Ace_O_Spades

Thanks SM70, that clears an awful lot up in my head.

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