Elections

The American political system is one of representative democracy. Such a government requires a process, held at more or less regular intervals, through which the populace may choose its representative policymakers. Elections constitute the mechanism by which government is held publicly accountable, thus assuring that the will of the people is carried out. The franchise offers a forum for public participation in political decision‐making, legitimizing the state's authority to make policy and exercise coercive power. Without the right to the franchise, all other rights are illusory, subject only to the whim of those who control governmental power.

The Constitution, by its own terms, mandates popular elections only for members of Congress. Article I, section 2 provides that members of the House of Representatives shall be elected by the people of the respective states. The Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, provides similarly for the election of senators. Other amendments have expanded the scope of the polity generally. The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits the states from impairing the franchise on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Nineteenth Amendment forbids discrimination in electoral qualification based on sex, and the Twenty‐fourth Amendment prevents the state from imposing “any poll or other tax” as a condition of voting for a federal office (see Poll Taxes). The Twenty‐sixth Amendment effectively grants the right to vote to all eligible citizens at eighteen years of age. As a constitutional matter, the president is not elected popularly but, according to Article II, section 1, by an electoral college made up of state delegations equal in number to the sum of each state's senators and representatives and elected on the basis of state law.21

During the modern era, the issue of reapportionment and the impact of the Fourteenth Amendment have led to the constitutionalization of virtually all elections (see Reapportionment Cases). Until the 1960s, courts were reluctant to interfere in the political task of apportionment. Because the first half of the twentieth century had witnessed great changes in the distribution of the population, epitomized by a migration from rural to urban communities, the judicial finding that apportionment was a nonjusticiable “political question” allowed political intransigence to leave unrectified enormous disparities in the number of voters in different districts. The effect was an extreme dilution of the impact of the franchise in urban communities, significantly the residence of an increasing proportion of the nation's ethnic and racial minorities.

In Baker v. Carr (1962), a case that Chief Justice Earl Warren would later recollect as the most significant decision during his judicial tenure, the Court held justiciable a Fourteenth Amendment attack on legislative malapportionment. Only two years later in Reynolds v. Sims (1964), it declared the right to vote a “fundamental right” under the Fourteenth Amendment and adopted a “one man, one vote” standard for constitutional apportionment (see One Person, One Vote). Many of the critics who had heralded the Court's opinion in Baker blasted the Reynolds decision, which allowed for only majority‐rule elections, as bad political theory. “Madisonian democracy,” unlike majoritarian democracy, they argued, was to be based on interest politics—the complex politics of group bargaining that considered the measure of intensity surrounding an issue, the lobbying ability of various groups, the effect of party loyalties, and the rights of minority groups. Unwilling to enter this political morass, the Court chose instead a simple head‐counting procedure that required little beyond a cold statistical record. Representation was to be closely based upon population unless a legitimate state objective demanded otherwise.

Early reapportionment cases left unclear the types of legislatures covered by the one person, one vote rule, the degree of mathematical equality required among districts, and the types of state policy that could justify deviations from mathematical equality. The Court did make clear that its equal population rule applied to both houses of a bicameral state legislature (Maryland Committee for Fair Representation v. Tawes, 1964) and that the burden of justifying deviations from the equal population standard lay with the state (Lucas v. Forty‐Fourth Colorado General Assembly, 1964). Some were dismayed that the Court would hold unconstitutional the very accommodation of majoritarianism and territoriality enshrined in the Constitution's formulation of Congress. The Reynolds Court, however, rejected the federal legislative analogy, stressing that while the states had once been fully sovereign, subdivisions such as counties and cities had—and were—not.

For some time the relevance of the mathematical equality rule to local governments remained unclear. Finally, in Avery v. Midland County (1968) and, more explicitly, in Hadley v. Junior College District (1970), the Court extended the Reynolds rule to any election—whether federal, state, or local—where the “government decides to select persons by a popular election to perform governmental functions” (p. 56). It further refused to distinguish for purposes of the apportionment rule between elections for “legislative” and those for “administrative” officials. However, Hadley excepted from its holding the election of functionaries “whose duties are … far removed from normal governmental activities and … disproportionately affect different groups” (p. 56). Since Hadley, this exception for specialized local bodies has been applied only twice, both cases involving election of water district members. The Court found the districts' activities “so disproportionately” affected landowners as to release them from the demands of the Reynolds rule. Although this determination may be justified in the first of the two cases, Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District (1973), where the district's primary purpose was to provide for the acquisition, storage, and distribution of water for farming in the surrounding river basin, it is not as clearly appropriate in the second, Ball v. James (1981), in which the water district also generated and supplied electricity for hundreds of thousands of state residents—landowners and nonlandowners alike.

Even where the one person, one vote principle holds, courts must still consider how far an apportionment scheme may deviate from precise mathematical equality before it violates the Constitution. Reynolds emphasized that states were responsible to make an honest and good faith effort to construct districts “as nearly of equal population as is practicable” (p. 577). This strict equality standard has been unwaveringly applied in cases involving state apportionment of congressional districts. In *Kirkpatrick v. Preisler (1969), for example, the Court struck down a districting plan where the discrepancy between the most and the least populous district was under 6 percent. Even such slight deviations were permissible only if they were unavoidable despite good faith efforts to achieve absolute equality.

The Kirkpatrick decision did not clearly distinguish between state legislative and congressional districts. However, beginning with *Mahan v. Howell (1973), the Court has made clear that there is considerably more leeway in apportioning state legislatures. In Brown v. Thomson (1983), for example, population disparities ranging up to 10 percent were deemed de minimis, not requiring state justification. Even disparities of more than 10 percent have been upheld when justified as furthering the goals of compactness, contiguity, and the preservation of political subdivisions. Although county and other political subdivision lines may be considered irrelevant to the determination of congressional districts because persons in Congress are not primarily concerned with legislation that affects specific counties within a state, the same cannot be said of the actions of state legislators. States, therefore, may have greater legitimate reasons for wishing to keep voter groups in county or other political subdivisions when voting for state legislative positions and may also wish to guarantee representation to small counties so as to assure them legislative input on matters effecting them in unique ways.

Legislative districts, although mathematically consistent with Fourteenth Amendment standards, may still be attacked as a violation of equal protection if they appear to obstruct fair representation by diluting the voting strength of an identifiable racial or ethnic minority or, perhaps, a particular political association. Two distinct apportionment practices most often have been questioned. First, apportionment plans sometimes provide that the residents of certain districts are to elect more than one representative. Such multimember or “at large” district plans may comply with the equal population rule, yet still function to exclude or submerge particular minority groups. The “winner‐take‐all” character of most elections creates the possibility that a specific majority will elect all of the representatives from a multimember district, whereas the outvoted minority might have been able to elect some representatives if the district had been broken down into several single‐member districts. The decision to use multimember districts can thus serve to eradicate the political voice of a minority. Second, apportionment plans often rely on gerrymandering—the drawing of district lines so as to delimit the voting power of cognizable groups of voters. A majority might attempt to abridge or dilute the voting power of a minority by grouping minority voters disproportionately in one or a few districts, thus limiting minority impact to specific designated areas.

Despite recognizing the risk these practices pose to voter minorities, the Court in Whitcomb v. Chavis (1971) refused to hold multimember districts per se unconstitutional. Two years later, however, in White v. Regester (1973), the justices upheld a district court decision invalidating two multimember districts. The Court found that the plaintiffs had adequately proven, through an amalgam of historical and contemporary evidence, that African‐ and Mexican‐Americans had been invidiously excluded from effective participation in political life. Left ambiguous was whether a claim of vote dilution could succeed under either the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments without proving discriminatory intent. In 1980, Mobile v. Bolden resolved this ambiguity by requiring specific proof of discriminatory intent for lawsuits brought under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Quickly, Congress, concerned that Bolden’s evidentiary requirement might seriously retard the Voting Rights Act's effort to prevent racial discrimination in the franchise, amended section 2 to restore a predominantly effects standard. As amended, claimants need prove only that the challenged practice results in a denial of equal opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect candidates of their choice. The Court, interpreting the amended section 2 in Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), set forth a detailed legal standard for adjudicating such claims. Minority voters must demonstrate that the apportionment scheme “operates to minimize or cancel out their ability to elect their preferred candidates” (p. 48). This claim can be proved by showing that a “bloc voting majority [is] usually … able to defeat candidates supported by a politically cohesive, geographically insular minority group” (p. 49). The standard requires a court to find that significant racial bloc voting exists that has led to minorities suffering “substantial difficulty” in electing their preferred representative. Although proof of intent is not required, the evidentiary mandates remain complex. The Supreme Court recently has decided in Chisom v. Roemer (1991) that the Voting Rights Act's provisions encompass state judicial elections.

Much of the judicial involvement in the election process since Baker has been motivated by a felt need to protect minority ethnic and racial groups from legislative discrimination and ensure them a voice and presence in our legislative halls. Given the nation's history, such a concern is justifiable. The Court, however, has not appeared equally willing to confront vote dilution claims brought by members of political or ideological groups. Initially, the Court viewed political gerrymandering as simply politics as usual. Presumably, any legislative majority will choose, among otherwise equally acceptable districting maps, the one that gives the incumbent party the best chance to retain its majority position. Courts, thus, appeared unenthused about entering the thicket of political gerrymandering that might compel judges to determine the “proper balance” between rival political parties in the legislature.

Still, if one dominant political party can draw legislative districts so as to dilute greatly the representation of the minority party, individuals would have their voting power limited because of their political beliefs and associations. Since the legislature cannot grant or withhold other benefits on such a basis without violating both the guarantees of equal protection and freedom of association, so limiting the effective franchise is difficult to defend.

In Davis v. Bandemer (1986), the Court recognized this apparent inconsistency and ruled that claims of political gerrymandering were also justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause. A majority, however, was not able to agree on the appropriate standard for deciding such claims. The most to be gleaned from the fractured Court opinions is that the mere disadvantaging of a political party in one or two elections is likely to be insufficient to constitute a successful constitutional attack.

Bandemer, like Baker, merely opens courts to hear claims of improper gerrymandering. However, behind Baker loomed the one person, one vote rule soon articulated in Reynolds. No comparable simple standard of review in the Bandemer context is readily apparent. Lower courts have been left with little guidance. One thing is clear: courts are likely to become even more deeply entangled in the political process as elections become more fully constitutionalized and thereby nationalized.

See also Fair Representation; Political Parties; Political Process; Vote, Right to.

Bibliography

• Walter L. Carpeneti, Legislative Apportionment: Multimember Districts and Fair Representation, University of Pennsylvania Law Review 120 (1972): 666–700.
• Armand Derfner, Racial Discrimination and the Right to Vote, Vanderbilt Law Review 26 (1973): 523–584.
• Developments in the Law—Elections, note in Harvard Law Review 88 (1975): 1111–1339.
• Ward E. Y. Elliott, The Rise of Guardian Democracy: The Supreme Court's Role in Voting Rights Disputes, 1845–1969 (1975)

— Stanley Ingber

An election is a process by which qualified individuals choose a candidate or set of candidates to represent them in office. Elections may involve a selection by a very restricted group, such as a legislature, or it may be broadly extended to universal adult suffrage. The process of election is linked, however, to choices of candidates rather than issues. Thus referenda, ballot propositions, state constitutions, charters, or amendments put before the voters do not constitute elections in the strictest sense. Since direct democracies involve decision making by the entire body politic, the system of elections is nearly unnecessary. Election, therefore, is a republican rather than a purely democratic institution.

Election systems play a vital part in representative democracy, however. The possibility of free unconstrained choice is a vital component in determining how democratic a country may be. In addition, the limitations on the voting franchise also limit the extent of true representation of the population. While both the British constitution and the American Declaration of Independence recognize the people's right to overthrow a tyrannical government, the system of free elections makes revolutions unnecessary, so long as the will of the people is accurately reflected and carried out. The American system of elections evolved out of the parliamentary system of polling for members of Parliament. In the Middle Ages, the right to vote for members of Parliament was spread rather broadly throughout the freehold population. In the towns, or boroughs, the vote was sometimes extended to all adult males. These were known as "potwalloper" boroughs, because the only criterion that an adult free male needed to meet in order to vote was possession of a pot.

Elections in the American Colonies

By the late seventeenth century in England, and in the English colonies, restrictive property qualifications were the norm. In Virginia, for example, property qualifications were sufficiently restrictive that less than one quarter of the free white male population could vote. In Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, the voting universe was somewhat larger, perhaps one-third of the free adult white male population. This demographic was a function of the more even distribution of wealth in the northern colonies. In no colony before the American Revolution was a majority of adult white males allowed to vote.

In southern American colonies and states like Virginia and South Carolina, polling took place over several days in the county seat, usually in the square in front of the courthouse. This practice continued well into the nineteenth century. In the southern colonies, before the polling actually took place, the candidates would usually provide refreshment for their neighbors, which included rum toddies and a "bull roast." Since only the gentry could afford such an expense, this custom ensured that in colonial elections only the wealthiest members of the gentry could afford to run for office. Once the polling began, the candidate might "spout" or give a speech, usually not related to politics. When the polling began, the eligible freeholders would stand up and announce their votes in front of their neighbors. After each vote, the candidate would personally thank the voter for this "honor." This public announcement meant that the community could exert a kind of coercive force on the voters. Since each vote was recorded by name, voters were usually very deferential in their behavior at the time they exercised their vote. They could, however, heckle the candidates in a good-natured sort of way, and sometimes this threat of humiliation was enough to keep well-qualified candidates from running for office. James Madison, who had helped draft the U.S. Constitution and the Federalist Papers, was very reluctant to run for office in the first congressional election of 1788. As a very short man with an insecure ego, Madison required a lot of persuasion from his friends to brave the humiliation.

Elections Before the U.S. Civil War

After the American Revolution, the extension of voting rights to a wider group of men took nearly two decades. Only after the turn of the nineteenth century, beginning with the election that Thomas Jefferson called "the Revolution of 1800," did men with little or no property begin to vote. Then, between 1800 and 1816, voter turnout widened dramatically. In those years voter turnout in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and North Carolina rose to over 60 percent of the adult white male population. In the New England states and in Pennsylvania, as African American slaves were emancipated, African American adult males were also permitted to vote. African Americans in this first flush of enfranchisement were often given equal opportunity to vote with whites in the North. By the 1840s property restrictions on adult white male voters had been almost entirely eliminated, except in the state of South Carolina. Ironically, however, increased property restrictions were imposed on free African American males in both New York and Pennsylvania in this so-called "Age of the Common Man."

Perhaps because of their service in the American Revolution, or perhaps by oversight, New Jersey legislators permitted female heads of household possessing more than £50 of property to vote. Women heads of household possessed the vote in New Jersey until 1807. In that year the state legislature repealed the vote for women, perhaps because women tended to vote Federalist and the state for the first time in 1807 came under the control of the Democratic Republicans.

Beginning in the nineteenth century, voice voting gave way to ballot voting. In the Old South this did not occur without some protest. Many politicians of the older generation feared their loss of control of the election process. They complained that voice voting ensured against corruption: a vote accounted for at the time it was delivered could not be stolen. Ballot boxes could be stuffed and voting rolls could be padded, and they frequently were. Voice voting, however, did not ensure against corruption. It only ensured against voter autonomy. Kentucky, which had been one of the first states to institute ballot voting, from 1792 to 1799, reinstituted voice voting and was the last state to abandon it before the Civil War.

By the 1840s political parties developed into nationally competitive organizations, and new election rituals connected the voters to the political parties. In the month leading up to an election, voters would assemble in mass rallies. In the large cities, several thousand people at a time might gather at one of these rallies. In the "Log Cabin" campaign of 1840, for example, voters in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and smaller cities across the Union gathered in the city centers to show their support for "Old Tippecanoe," William Henry Harrison, who allegedly lived in a log cabin beside the Ohio River and drank hard cider. Actually, Harrison was the son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence and came from one of the most prominent families in Virginia. He lived in a very grand house and drank Kentucky bourbon but that did not stop the mass rallies around replicas of his log cabin that were set up in every city of any size. The Whigs, who sponsored Harrison's campaign, called for ball-rolling rallies during the Log Cabin campaign. Young boys were set to work rolling an enormous ball through the cities and towns to demonstrate the popular momentum of "Old Tip."

Not to be outdone, the Democrats centered their campaign on Martin Van Buren, whom the party nicknamed "Old Kinderhook," or "O.K." Like "Old Hickory" before him (Andrew Jackson), O.K. was supposed to be a man of the people living simply on his farm in upstate New York. Although Van Buren and the Democrats lost the campaign of 1840, Van Buren's nickname became so ubiquitous in the American language in the late 1830s and early 1840s that anything that had popular approval came to be "O.K." in the American idiom. This is a remarkable testament to how prevalent electioneering language became in American speech.

Election newspapers began to appear with great frequency in the 1840s. Both the Democratic Republicans and the Federalists had supported electioneering newspapers for a short period leading up to an election in the early part of the century. By the 1840s these electioneering newspapers had become important in themselves. The most famous of these electioneering newspapers was the New York Log Cabin, which was edited by an ambitious young editor newly emigrated from New Hampshire named Horace Greeley. Greeley's experience on the Log Cabin led to his editorship of the New York Tribune. Not only Whigs like Greeley, but also Democrats like Duff Green and Isaac Hill, had electioneering experience. Hill and another editor, Francis P. Blair, were among the most important members of Andrew Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet.

Election Frauds and "reforms"

In the era of the Civil War, elections took on a more militaristic quality. Voters were urged into "battle." They drilled in military formations. Over and over, voters were reminded to "Vote as you shot!" In these late-nineteenth-century elections, American adult men reached the highest levels of participation ever recorded in the United States. Typically in the North and Midwest, a presidential election year might see a turnout of 70 to 80 percent of all adult male voters. There were few restrictions on voting and in many urban areas where large numbers of immigrants lived the urban machines enlisted votes even before they were formally qualified as citizens.

The late-nineteenth-century elections relied on ethnocultural dissonance to sustain voters' loyalties at the polls. Republicans were more likely to be northern European, Protestant, Union Civil War veterans, middle class, and in favor of protectionism. For the Republicans, African Americans in the South were the most reliable ethnic cohorts. Democrats were more likely to be southern or eastern European, Catholic, Confederate Civil War veterans, working class, and in favor of free trade. For the Democrats, southern whites and Irish Catholics constituted the most reliable blocs of voters.

Beginning in the 1870s and accelerating in the 1890s, the American voting universe began to shrink, thanks to many of the reforms instituted to protect elections from "voter fraud." After 1877, with the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, African Americans were gradually systematically excluded from voting. By the 1890s the African American vote in the South was negligible, thanks to outright intimidation, poll taxes, and highly subjective "literacy tests." This was defended by some in the South as a necessary "reform" to end political "corruption." In the northern cities, voter registration laws allowed for a much more stringent inspection of immigrants' claims of citizenship. Residency requirements, waiting periods, and literacy in English all helped reduce the immigrant vote and the power of the urban machines.

Ironically, one of the most important reforms that reduced the power of the political parties was the introduction of the Australian ballot, beginning in the United States in 1888. The Australian ballot, which had been in use in that country for thirty years, listed all candidates for all offices on a single sheet of paper. Reformers hailed this victory for individual autonomy over the coercion of political party machines. The benefits were not so clear, however. Many voters were confused by the way the lists of candidates were presented on these "secret" ballots. Many times they voted for someone they had not intended to choose, or they abandoned voting for candidates "down the list": for those minor offices where name recognition did not aid them in making a choice.

With the introduction of the Australian ballot, the primary election became increasingly important in determining which candidate would be the party's "nominee." Before the Australian ballot, the nomination function had been the prerogative of the political parties. At the end of the nineteenth century, Minnesota instituted a mandatory state primary system and by the 1920s this became the favored means of selecting candidates for state and local offices.

In the South, however, the primary became a means of circumventing African American participation in elections even if they could gain the right to vote. In many southern states, winning the Democratic primary election was tantamount to winning office. Beginning in the 1920s, some southern states instituted a "whites only" clause in the primary election, stipulating that only whites could be "members" of the Democratic Party and only "members" of the party could vote. The U.S. Supreme Court outlawed this practice as a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment in a Texas case in 1944, Smith v. Allwright.

After World War I the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, and in 1920 for the first time women across the nation were permitted to vote in all elections. In addition to New Jersey's brief experiment with woman suffrage, Wyoming had allowed women to vote since 1869 and western states generally were more favorable in extending full equality to women than the states in the East. Although women in the late twentieth century were more likely to vote than men, in the 1920s many women were discouraged from voting. Women have been blamed for the low turnout in the 1920 and 1924 elections, when voter turnout in the presidential race plummeted in 1916 from 61.6 percent of all eligible adults (including women in some states) to 49.2 and 48.9 percent, respectively. While some research indicates women voted in lower numbers in those years, other factors, including conflicted sympathy, may have depressed turnout generally, as it did in elections in the 1990s. In any event turnout rose dramatically during the Great Depression and, by 1936, 61.6 percent of all adult men and women were voting.

Elections in the Late Twentieth Century

In the 1950s the political scientist V. O. Key produced an influential study in which he argued that certain "critical" elections produced fundamental realignments of American voters. "Critical" elections showed higher turnout and changes in key blocs or generational cohorts of voters in favor of one party. The elections of 1800, 1828, 1860, 1896, and 1932 were the elections Key identified. Each one of these elections ushered in a new political "party system," with different ideologies and voter loyalties.

In a series of studies commenced at the University of Michigan in the 1950s, and continuing through the election of 2000, survey researchers began examining how voters made choices in elections. The results caused serious concerns for political scientists and citizens alike. Voters increasingly drew upon information from television in making up their minds before election day. Party preference played an increasingly limited role in determining how voters chose a candidate. Voters indicated that personality and single issues often determined which candidate they would vote for.

In the age of television, as political scientists and citizens' groups pointed out, a candidate who was relatively untested in office and unknown by his party could be elected to office on the basis of his or her good looks, winning personality, or position on a single issue that might be irrelevant to other important issues before the public. As the twentieth century wore on, electronic media became increasingly expensive and the political parties were faced with the necessity of full-time fundraising in order to get their message before the public.

Campaign finance reform was attempted in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal but, like all previous election reforms, the Watergate financing laws had unintended consequences. By allowing for "soft money" (contributions of large sums of money by special interest groups and individuals to political parties ostensibly for "party building" purposes that are unrelated to influencing federal elections), campaign finance reform created a loophole in regulating political campaign financing that has made oversight difficult, if not nearly impossible. Campaign finance reform was sponsored by a group of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans at the turn of the twenty-first century because both parties and all politicians were spending too much time raising money to do their jobs effectively. As the result of an uncertain presidential election outcome in 2000, both parties declared the need for clearer, less ambiguous ballots and for an overhaul of voting machines. Reversing the trend of the early twentieth century, twenty-first-century reformers urged legislators to reform the ballot process by protecting against confusion rather than fraud.

Bibliography

Baker, Jean H. Affairs of Party: The Political Culture of Northern Democrats in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983.

Benson, Lee. The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961.

Burnham, Walter Dean. Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics. New York: Norton, 1970.

Chambers, William Nisbet, and Walter Dean Burnham. The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967.

Clubb, Jerome M. Electoral Change and Stability in American Political History. New York: Free Press, 1971.

Jordan, Daniel P. Political Leadership in Jefferson's Virginia. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia Press, 1983.

Key, V.O. The Responsible Electorate: Rationality in Presidential Voting, 1936–1960. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966.

McWilliams, Wilson Cary. Beyond the Politics of Disappointment? American Elections, 1980–1998. New York: Chatham House, 2000.

Nie, Norman H., Sidney Verba, and John R. Petrocik. The Changing American Voter. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976.

Sydnor, Charles. Gentlemen Freeholders: Political Practices in Washington's Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952.

—Andrew W. Robertson

The processes of voting to decide a public question or to select one person from a designated group to perform certain obligations in a government, corporation, or society.

Elections are commonly understood as the processes of voting for public office or public policy, but they are also used to choose leaders and settle policy questions in private organizations, such as corporations, labor unions, and religious groups. They also take place within specific government bodies. For example, the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislatures elect their own leader, who is called the Speaker of the House.

In elections, a candidate is a person who is selected by others as a contestant. A ballot is anything that a voter uses to express his or her choice, such as a paper and pen or a lever on a machine. A poll is the place where a voter casts his or her ballot.

For government policy and leadership, a general election is commonly understood as a process of voting that regularly occurs at specified intervals. For national elections, Congress has designated the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November as election day. A special election is held under special circumstances. For example, if an elected official dies or resigns from office during her or his term, a special election may be held before the next scheduled general election for the office.

The free election of government leaders is a relatively recent practice. Until the eighteenth century, leaders gained political power through insurrection and birthright. Political thought changed dramatically in eighteenth-century Europe, where industrial progress inspired the reconsideration of individual rights and government. The notion that government leaders should be chosen by the governed was an important product of that movement.

The United States held its first presidential election on February 4, 1789. In that election, George Washington was chosen U.S. president by a small, unanimous vote of electors. Since its infancy, the United States has held elections to decide who will assume public offices, such as the offices of the president and vice president, U.S. senators and representatives, and state and local legislators. Individual states have also held elections for a wide range of other government officials, such as judges, attorneys general, district attorneys, public school officials, and police chiefs.

Elections for public offices are governed by federal and state laws. Article I of the U.S. Constitution requires that a congressional election be held every two years and that senators be elected every six years. Article II states that a president and a vice president shall be elected for a four-year term. In 1951, the states ratified Amendment 22, which provides that no person may serve as president more than twice.

For the federal oversight of national elections for public office, Congress created the Federal Election Commission (FEC) with 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C.A. § 431 et seq.). The FEC provides for the public financing of presidential elections. It also tracks and reveals the amounts and sources of money used by candidates for national office and their political committees. The FEC enforces the limits on financial contributions to, and expenditures of, those candidates and committees. To receive FEC funding, political committees must register with the FEC.

States regulate many aspects of government elections, including eligibility requirements for candidates, eligibility requirements for voters, and the date on which state and local elections are held. U.S. citizens have the right to form and operate political parties, but that right can be regulated by the state legislature. For example, a candidate may not be placed on an election ballot unless he or she has registered with the state election board. Many states maintain stringent requirements for would-be candidates, such as sponsorship by a certain number of voters on a petition. A monetary deposit may also be required. Such a deposit may be forfeited if the candidate fails to garner a certain proportion of the vote in the election.

No state may abridge voting guarantees of the U.S. Constitution. Under the Constitution's Twenty-fourth Amendment, for example, no state may make the payment of a poll tax or other tax a requirement for voting privileges. Under the Fifteenth Amendment, states may not deny the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The Nineteenth Amendment prevents states from denying or abridging the right to vote based on sex.

In the early 1990s, fifteen states passed legislation that limited the tenure of U.S. senators and representatives. In 1995, these "term-limit" measures were declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. In United States Term Limits v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779, 115 S. Ct. 1842, 131 L. Ed. 2d 881 (1995), the state of Arkansas had amended its constitution to preclude persons who had served a certain number of terms in the U.S. Congress from placing their name in future U.S. Congress elections. Arkansas cited Article I, Section 4, Clause 1, of the U.S. Constitution for support. This clause allows that "[t]he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof." Arkansas further argued that its amendment merely restricted ballot access and was not an outright disqualification of congressional incumbents.

The Court disagreed with Arkansas. In a 5-4 opinion, the Court rejected the constitutionality of any term-limits legislation. According to the majority, the only qualifications for U.S. congressional office were contained in two constitutional clauses. Article I, Section 2, Clause 2, of the federal Constitution provides that a representative should be at least twenty-five years of age, a citizen of the United States for at least seven years, and a resident of the represented state at the time of the election. Article I, Section 3, Clause 3, states that a senator should be at least thirty years of age, a citizen of the United States for at least nine years, and an inhabitant of the represented state when elected. These provisions, according to the Court, were designed to be the only qualifications for U.S. congressional office, and any additional qualifications are unconstitutional.

Although the Constitution prohibits term limits for the U.S. Congress, it does not prevent states from setting term limits for their own state legislature.

Administration of Government Elections

Voters register with a precinct, which is a local voting district. Registration must be accomplished in the manner prescribed by state statute. The voting location may be any structure authorized by the state to serve as such. All states allow absentee voting for persons who cannot be present in their precinct on election day. Voting is secret, whether by absentee ballot or at the polls.

Election officials are charged with the supervision of voting. In some states, voters indicate their preferences by pulling a lever in a voting machine; in other states, they use a paper and pen. At the end of the voting day, election officials count, or canvass, the results and report them to city or county officials or to the state board of elections. The complete results are filed with the secretary of state or some other designated state government official. The candidate with the most votes is then declared the winner of the election. This is called a direct election because the winner is determined by a straight count of the popular vote.

The election of a president and vice president is an indirect election. That is, the winner is determined not by a popular vote but by an electoral vote. Each state has a certain number of electors, which is equal to the total number of senators and representatives to which the state is entitled in Congress. In theory, an elector may vote for whomever she or he wants, but in practice, electors vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state.

Primaries and Conventions

A political party is entitled to nominate candidates for public office, subject to regulation by Congress and state legislatures. The nominating process is accomplished through a system of primaries, caucuses, and nominating conventions. The process varies from state to state, but generally, primaries and caucuses produce delegates who later cast votes at a nominating convention held several weeks or months before election day. Nominating conventions are held by political parties at the local, state, and national levels to officially choose candidates for public office in the upcoming elections.

A primary is a preliminary election held by a political party before the actual election to determine a party's candidates. A primary may be open or closed. An open primary is one in which all registered voters may participate. The number of delegates a candidate receives is then based on the candidate's performance. In some states, the winner of the popular vote wins all the delegates available to the state at the nominating convention. In other states, candidates receive a portion of delegates based on their respective showings.

In a closed primary, only voters who have declared their allegiance to the party may vote. Closed primaries may be indirect or direct. In an indirect closed primary, party voters only elect delegates who later vote for the party's candidates at a nominating convention. In a direct closed primary, party voters actually decide who will be the party's candidates, and then choose delegates only to communicate that decision at the nominating convention.

In some states, political parties use a caucus system instead of a primary system to determine which candidates to support. A caucus is a local meeting of registered party members. The manner in which delegates are chosen at these caucuses varies widely from state to state. In some states, each party member who shows up at the caucus is entitled to one vote for each office. The caucus then produces an allotment of delegates based on the popular vote in the caucus, and these delegates later represent the caucus in the county, legislative district, state, and national conventions. In other states, those who attend the caucus vote for delegates who pledge their support for certain candidates. These delegates then represent the caucus at the party's nominating conventions.

At a convention, delegates vote to determine who will emerge as the party's candidate. Usually, if no candidate wins a majority of the delegates on the first round, delegates are free to vote for a different candidate than the one they originally chose to support. More often than not, candidates have garnered sufficient delegates in the primaries and caucuses before the nominating convention to win the nomination. Where nominations are locked up prior to the convention, the convention becomes a perfunctory celebration of the party policies, and an advertising vehicle for the nominated candidates.

Conflicts over nomination procedures often arise within a political party. In 1991, the Freedom Republicans, a group representing minority members of the Republican party, launched an attack on the party's allocation of delegates between the states. Since 1916, the Republican party had employed a bonus delegate system as a method to determine delegate representation at its national convention for nominating presidential candidates. Under this system, each state received a number of delegates equal to three times its electoral college vote. States that elected Republican presidents, senators, representatives, and governors then received an additional allotment of delegates. The bonus delegate system gave certain Republican-dominated states a greater say in choosing the party's presidential candidate.

According to the Freedom Republicans, the bonus delegate system reduced the representation of minority interests within the party because minority members often came from Democrat-dominated states. The largely rural, Republican-dominated western states contained small minority populations, so minorities were poorly represented in the Republican delegate system. The Freedom Republicans sued the FEC under title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C.A. § 2000d) in an attempt to stop FEC funding of the Republican National Convention.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the FEC to create and enforce regulations governing the selection of delegates to the publicly funded national nominating conventions of political parties. On appeal by the FEC, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated the order. The appeals court held that the connection between the FEC funding and the Republican delegate scheme was insufficient to hold the FEC accountable for the delegate scheme. According to the court, it was also unlikely that the Republican party would change its delegate scheme if funding were withheld (Freedom Republicans, Inc. v. Federal Election Com'n, 13 F. 3d 412 [D.C. Cir. 1994]).

Initiatives and Referendums

The voting results on important questions of public policy are commonly known as referendums or propositions. These results decide whether a policy becomes law or whether a state constitution will be revised or amended. An initiative is the initiation of legislative or constitutional changes through the filing of formal petitions. If an initiative is supported by a certain percentage of the population, it may be included on an election ballot for public approval. Referendums and initiatives allow for the development of legislation independent of formal legislative processes. Not all state constitutions provide for referendums and initiatives.

Campaigns

A campaign is the time preceding an election that a candidate uses for promotion. Election campaigns for public offices in the United States have evolved into complex, expensive affairs. Candidates rely on a variety of support, from financial contributions to marketing and campaign specialists. Elections for national office require large sums of money for advertising and travel. Local elections also favor candidates who are well financed. Historically, the money needed for successful campaigns has come from major political parties, such as the Republican and Democratic parties.

Criminal Aspects

The U.S. Congress and state legislatures prohibit a wide variety of conduct in connection with elections. It is criminal conduct, for example, for a candidate to promise an appointment to public office in return for campaign contributions (18 U.S.C.A. § 599). Numerous laws prohibit the coercion of voters, including the solicitation of votes in exchange for money, interference with voting rights by armed forces personnel and other government employees, and the intimidation of voters.

The enforcement of criminal laws can face the odd challenge on election day. In State v. Stewart, 869 S.W.2d 86 (Mo. App. W.D. 1993), Robbin Stewart was stopped for speeding as he returned from voting in a primary election. Stewart argued that the case against him should have been dismissed because article VIII, section 4, of the Missouri Constitution provided that voters should be "privileged from arrest while going to, attending and returning from elections, except in case of treason, felony or breach of the peace."

The Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District rejected Stewart's argument. The appeals court noted that in the past, the Missouri Committee on Suffrage and Elections had entertained the idea that the clause cited by Stewart should apply to primary elections as well as general elections, and that the committee had refused to adopt the expansion. In a footnote, the court advised that the U.S. Supreme Court had construed the phrase "treason, felony or breach of the peace" as including all criminal offenses (Williamson v. U.S., 207 U.S. 425, 28 S. Ct. 163, 52 L. Ed. 278 [1908]). Such a reading would seem to nullify the objective of Missouri's constitutional clause. Nevertheless, the existence of such an election-day privilege is a testament to the importance of free elections in the United States.

See: Election Campaign Financing; Gerrymander; Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Quotes:

"There is no excitement anywhere in the world, short of war, to match the excitement of the American presidential campaign." - Theodore White

"Let's try winning and see what it feels like. If we don't like it, we can go back to our traditions." - Paul Tsongas

"If you want to get elected, shake hands with 25, 000 people between and November 7." - Harry S. Truman

"I'm not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning." - Adlai E. Stevenson

"The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal -- that you can gather votes like box tops -- is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process." - Adlai E. Stevenson

"Indeed, you won the elections, but I won the count." - Anastasio Somoza

See more famous quotes about Elections