>> Narrator: The US Congress and Presidential elections.
Voting
- the people's chance to decide who they want to run their country and represent their interests.
But how does it work in the United States of America?
Across the pond voting is quite different.
Like the UK Parliament, the United States Congress has two houses; the House of Representatives
and the Senate. Unlike the UK there are public elections to both houses and a third separate
election is held to choose a President. In the US the President
is both the head of State and the head of Government. In the
UK these roles are carried out separately by the Monarch and the Prime Minister.
The House of Representatives in the US Congress is designed to give a voice to the
people of every local voting region in America. Members of the House of Representatives
stand for re-election every two years. Each state is split into Districts and
each District votes for one representative. The number of Districts depends on the
population of each State, for example California, the most populous
State, is split into 53 Districts so has 53 Representatives, but Alaska, which is huge
but has a really small population, only has one District
and therefore only
one Representative in the House.
Like the UK House of Commons the election system is first-past-the-post so
the candidate with the most votes in each District wins a seat in the House of
Representatives.
The party that wins a majority of seats in the House takes control.
The ideal situation for a President is that the House is controlled
by their own party. However with elections held every
two years, there's always a midterm election in the middle of
the President's time in office. If the public thinks the President is not
doing a great job, they can vote in more members of the
opposition party making it more difficult for the President to pass laws.
The Senate in the US Congress, like the House of Lords in the UK Parliament, is sometimes
called the Upper House. George Washington described the Senate as the saucer that cools
the coffee, meaning that it's their job to scrutinize and question all proposals made
by both the House of Representatives and the President before voting
to decide whether they should proceed as law.
Senators like members of the House of Representatives are also elected to their seats by the public.
Senators serve six year terms and elections are staggered so every two years
a third of the Senators run for re-election.
Each State is represented by two Senators, regardless of its population and
again the first-past-the-post voting system is used so the candidate with the most
votes wins.
So how do Americans choose their leader? Well Presidential elections take place every four
years.
The two main parties - the Democrats and the Republicans - host big
get togethers where they choose their Presidential candidates, the person
they think will be the best leader for the nation.
The winning candidate then chooses their Vice Presidential candidate also known as their
Running Mate to help support the campaign.
Presidential candidates usually choose someone with different areas of skill or
knowledge so they present voters with the best
package. Together they're known as a ticket.
Presidential candidates from both parties then start out
on massive election campaigns to gain as much voter support as
possible.
They travel across the country and hold great big campaign rallies where they set
out the policies and their ideas for the whole country.
These campaigns cost money, lots of it, so both candidates have large campaign
teams who helped raise the tens of millions of dollars needed to keep them afloat.
When it comes to election day the public go to the polls to
vote for one Presidential ticket.
So far so easy, however the public don't vote directly for their choice for President,
instead a system called the Electoral College is used.
Each State is allocated a number of Electors that will make the final choice.
A State has the same number of Electors
as it does Senators and Representatives. In most States all the Electors will voters
for the Presidential ticket which received the most support and
public vote.
Finally, the Presidential ticket with the most Electoral College votes becomes President
and Vice President of the
United States of America.
So that's how things work in the US, a democracy like the UK but on a much larger
scale.