US Presidential Election: Complete Process

Author
Recent Posts

Atul Sharma

An extrovert by nature, Atul has been sharing his opinions and views on various social network platforms. He always had been thinking about having his own platform and here it is. Creative and tech-savvy Atul has a good sense of humor and when he is not programming or writing blogs or traveling, you can find him cooking, Netflixing or sleeping.

1. Nomination

Time – till Spring of Election Year

In this process, candidates express their intention to run for the highest position. Eligibility criteria

Must be a Natural Born US Citizen
The minimum age is 35 years
Must have completed 14 years in the US

They can file their nomination from any party or as an independent candidate.

2. Primaries and Caucuses

Time – By the end of June Election Year

2016	Republican Party	Feb 1, 2016 – June 14, 2016
	Democratic Party	Feb 1, 2016 – June 07, 2016
2020	Republican Party	Feb 3, 2020 – August 11, 2020
	Democratic Party	Feb 3, 2020 – August 11, 2020

Primaries and Caucuses dates for 2016 and 2020 for two major parties

The main objective of this stage is to shortlist the candidates at the party level, decide policies on many issues of the party. Many candidates drop off their nominations after this. Since Primary and Caucus are two different processes, but their main objective is to elect delegates who will vote for party presidential candidates in the National Convention of the particular party.

Caucuses

These are organized by Political parties. Here party supporters meet and elect delegates to choose whom they believe should be candidates in the give election. The election happens using headcount, raising hands, or voice support. Sometimes it goes with secret ballet as well.

All candidates receiving less than 15% of votes are considered Non-Viable and their supporters merge into some other candidate.

First Caucus takes place in IOWA (IA)

Primary

Primary is organized by State government. It is based on secret ballet voting.

Close Primary – Only registered party members can vote.
Open Primary – Anyone can vote.

Again, it elects delegates for National Convention for a party.

First Primary takes place in New Hampshire (NH).

Few states follow Primary, few Caucuses and few follow mixes of both. Count and rules for each of the states for primaries and caucuses vary every year.

Super Tuesday

In March, After Primaries and Caucuses in a few states, many states come together and organize Primary and Caucuses on a single day Tuesday. It gets more clear pictures of front runners from each party.

In 2016, After Super Tuesday, Only Trump, Cruz, and Kasich remained in the race from the republican party. While Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders remained in the presidential nomination race from the democratic party. On the same line, other parties like, Libertarian Party, Green Party, Constitution party candidates and independents filed for their nominations into different primaries and caucuses.

Even after Super Tuesday, many remaining states hold their primary and caucuses but till then it has very clear picture of front runners from each party.

3. National Conventions

Time – By August of Election Year

2016	Republican Party	July 18-21, 2016
	Democratic Party	July 25-28, 2016
	Libertarian Party	May 26-30, 2016
2020	Republican Party	Aug 24-27, 2020
	Democratic Party	Aug 17-20, 2020
	Libertarian Party (Online)	May 22-24, 2020

National Conventions in 2016 and 2020

Now, delegates elected from all Primaries and Caucuses, gather and vote for their candidates in the Party National Convention. The candidate getting the highest votes awarded the party ticket for the President. Please note here – till this point, all the processes are internal to the party.

In 2016, From the republican party, Donald Trump was nominated while Democratic Hillary Clinton won the party nomination. Same for other parties as follows

Libertarian Party – Gary Johnson
Green Party – Jill Stein
Constitution party – Darrell Castle

4. Running Mate

Time – After National Convention

Now party nominee, search for their running mate .

In 2016, the following were running mates and Vice-Presidential candidates from the party –

Party Name	Party Candidate for President and Vice President (Running Mate)
Republican Party	Donald Trump, Mike Pence
Democratic Party	Hillary Clinton, Tim Kaine
Libertarian Party	Gary Johnson, Bill Weld
Green Party	Jill Stein, Ajamu Baraka
Constitution Party	Darrell Castle, Scott Bradley
Independent	Evan McMullin, Mindy Finn

5. Election Campaign

Time – September and October of Election Year

Now all parties launch nationwide election campaigns using all platforms.

Presidential Debate –

In 1987, a non-profit organization, Commission on Presidential Debates was established under the joint sponsorship of Republican and Democratic parties. It has been legally challenged for having only two parties in this debate.

So, in total, 4 debates are organized between these two-party nominees. 3 debates are between President nominees and 1 between Vice President nominees (shown in bold).

2016	Sep 26, Oct 9, Oct 19, Oct 4
2020	Sep 29, Oct 15 (Cancelled), Oct 22, Oct 7

Presidential Debate

These debates provide a stage for candidates to give their opinion and let everyone decide who is better, but many surveys have reported that it doesn’t do much impact on the voters as they have already decided, who they are going to vote for.

6. Election Day

Time – First Tuesday after First Monday, Election Year

2008 (4 Nov), 2012 (6 Nov), 2016 (8 Nov), 2020 (3 Nov)

This could be considered as the last day to vote as the US give the provision of early voting, absentees ballot, and in-mail voting as well. But again, there is a catch here, people don’t vote directly for President and Vice President candidates, rather they vote for the electoral college.

This image shows the electoral college count won by each party in 2016 –

Now let us know more about electoral college and understand better –

As we saw here, in the US, Congress (parliament) has two houses – the House of Representatives (Lower house) and Senate (Upper house).

Senate has fixed number of members and it is 100. That means 2 from each states of the US.

House of Representatives has a different number of presentations from each state, and it is based on the population of the state. For example – California has 53 while Montana has just 1.

So, based on this –

California (CA) = 53 (House of Representatives) + 2 (Senate) = 55
Texas (TX) = 36 (House of Representatives) + 2 (Senate) = 38

US Presidential Election Electoral votes by states — Source – Britannica Encyclopaedia

Considering all states, this totals to 435, and the House of Representatives has 435 members. Senate has 100 so a total of 535 votes is there, but we see that count to 538. Why…???

Because the States Capital Washington DC is not a state so it wouldn’t get its representation in the presidential election. So, it was decided to allocate 3 electoral only to Washington DC, which is equal to the minimum of any state electoral votes. Electoral Votes Only means it has no senator or house of representative.

Another important point to note here is the WINNER TAKES ALL rule. In any state, the party winning over 50% of seats, gets all the electoral votes. For example – Any party winning 20 seats in CA, will get electoral votes of 38 for the next stage. In other words, winning 50.1% votes or a landslide victory with 99.9% vote gives the same result for any Presidential candidate.

But again, note here, Maine (ME) and Nebraska (NE) doesn’t allow WINNER TAKES ALL.

In these split electors set up, In 2016, ME sent Hillary 3 and Trump 1 and in 2012, it was 4:0 for Obama vs Romney. For NE, 2012, and 2016, It had always been full support to Republicans and they bagged all 5 electors.

What else Americans vote for on Election Day?

As we saw, in the US Congress there are two houses.

7. Electoral Votes

Time – First Monday after Second Wednesday of December Election Year

14 December 2020

US election process is lengthy and complicated and has various methods of voting. So, after election day, it may again take a few more days/weeks to finalize the electors.

Now, in this case, all electors meet in their respective states and cast their votes by paper ballot, and it is NOT secret this time. They do it for President and Vice President separately.

Important things to note here, Electors are different from the House of Representatives and their job is to vote for President and Vice President only. Neither, they are part of any of the house of congress, nor they become secretary under the President. They are NOT given any other position for this.

On the same time, all congress members (All House of Representative and 1/3 Senate members) elected from the same process swear in and take respective office.

8. Elected President Announced

Time – 6 January, Election +1 Year

Now, Congress has taken office, both houses are set up. Count of Electoral votes starts under the supervision of the current Vice President, who is also the President of the Senate.

In this count, any candidate getting at least 270 votes, declared winner.

We saw that the US has a multi-party system and, in this case, it is quite possible that No party gets 270 electors. (for the instance: Republican – 260, Democratic – 260 and Libertarian Party – 10, Green Party – 8) and this may occur either President or Vice President.

For Vice President Scenario –

Here the top 2, VP candidates will be taken and since each state has an equal number here, so whoever gets 51, becomes Vice President of the US.

For President Scenario –

In this case, first of all, the top 3 candidates will be picked. Newly elected House of Representatives vote for President, but with a twist. In the House of Representatives, different states have different numbers count and here each state vote count is considered to be 1. (do you remember CA has 53 and Montana has 1 but Now all of them will be treated equally.)

Now whoever gets 26 votes, is declared as the new President of the United States of America.

But again, a twist, there are still more than 2 candidates, so what if no one gets 26 votes. Considering the same example Now Republican 24, Democratic 24, and the remaining 2 goes to Libertarian Party.

In this deadlock, if by 4 March of the year, no President could be decided elected new Vice President takes the position of President.

9. Inauguration Day

Time – 20 January, Election +1 Year

On this date, 20 January, President, and Vice President are inaugurated. First Vice President takes the oath and then President is sworn in.

With this, we explored the US Presidential Election process in-depth and also busted the mentioned myths. Incumbent US president doesn’t get party nomination unanimously. 45th President Donald Trump was challenged by Rocky De La Fuente, Bill Weld, Joe Walsh, Mark Sanford, from this list only Bill Weld contested till the end.

Definitely, it is a very long process. All that started around 1789 and at that time transportation and communication were NOT easily available and fast as it is today. So transferring the ballots would take a long time. The concept of electors is also to make all citizens familiar with the President and Vice President candidate as they can’t reach everyone and everywhere.

With this, I hope you have a clear understanding of the complete US Election process.