Elections of the President
The process by which the people choose between the Republican and Democratic candidates for President is complex and in part archaic, because some detailed provisions of the two hundred year-old Constitution are still in force.
When the people vote in November, the ballot paper includes the names of the Republican and Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President, each pair linked together: in 1984, for example, Reagan-Bush and Mondale-Ferraro respectively. (There are always other pairs of candidates as well, gaining publicity for various causes but with no real hope of being elected.)
But under the Constitution the voters in each state are voting for their state's share of the Electoral College; each state is choosing between rival lists of electors who meet a month later in the state capital for the formal process of electing the President.
Each state has the same number of electoral college votes as it has members of the two Houses of Congress, so as even the smallest states have two senators each they have more weight in the electoral college than the big states. In 1984 and 1988, with the Representatives allocated according to the 1980 census, the thirteen smallest states, with one or two Representatives each (hence three or four electoral college votes each) had altogether 46 electoral college votes for their ten million people, while California had 47 votes (45 + 2) for well over twenty million.
The serious anomaly in the electoral college system is the rule that in each state the candidate who wins the biggest number of the people's votes receives the whole electoral college vote for the state, no matter how small the majority. In 1976, when California had 45 electoral college votes, the Republican candidate had them all, the Democrat none, although the difference between the people's votes for the two candidates was so small that the equitable distribution would have been 23-22. The system appears to be absurd, and likely to produce a 'wrong' result by chance; but in fact in all twenty-four elections from 1892 to 1984 the candidate with the most votes from the people also won in the electoral college, usually by an exaggerated majority.
Elections for Congress
The House of Representatives is unusual among parliamentary assemblies in having a fresh general election at exactly two-year intervals. In each even-numbered year representatives must face first their party primary elections, then, if they win, the general election in November. If they are defeated, there is little chance of finding another seat to win, except by moving house, because by custom every member of the House of Representatives must be a resident of his or her district. After each ten-yearly census, nearly all district boundaries must be changed, so as to ensure that within each state each district has a nearly equal population; and in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, where the population is declining in relation to the country as a whole, some seats are eliminated. New York State had 39 seats in 1972-80, 34 in 1982-90, while Florida's seats increased from 15 to 19. Representatives from declining northern cities are the main sufferers from insecurity as a result of population change.
In party terms about fifty seats in the House of Representatives are so certain to be won by Democrats that the Republicans do not run a candidate. Most of these seats are in the South or in central cities. On the other side there are far fewer seats where the Democrats have no candidate. There are plenty of other seats too where there is a contest between the parties in November but the result is not in doubt. But even in the safe seats, it is first necessary to win the primary election, and here there may well be a serious contest, based on personality or policy, or both; and although the contest is between rivals for a party's nomination it may well be one between left and right. In those states (including many in the South) where registration is not by party, or where each primary election is open to all voters, voters of all party-allegiances are likely to vote in the primary of the dominant party, so the primary has all the qualities of a real election, and the primary candidates must run their campaigns accordingly. In districts where there is a real contest between the parties, primary elections are important too, and some people who voted for a Democrat defeated in the primary may vote for the Republican in November.
For elections of senators, each for a six-year term, the same general conditions apply, except that although some states are nearly safe for one party, the other never fails to run a candidate. To run a campaign, first for a primary, then for the main election, demands almost a whole year of electioneering activity and most probably the expenditure of several million dollars; and the same is true of elections for state governorships. But many voters, when they vote, pay more attention to the candidate than to the party - as is shown by the discrepancies between the party-votes for these two state-wide offices in some states in 1986.
Sometimes there are several Democratic candidates for the Democratic nomination, and in some states there is a second ballot but then vote for Republican candidates. For the primary election if none of them gets the majority at the first.
When there is a second ballot it is usually held between the two individuals who have the largest number of votes at the first. It is only in the primary elections that a second ballot is used, because in the formal election there is rivalry only between the Democratic and Republican candidates. One of these is sure to have an overall majority.
The position of senators or representatives even if they have safe seats in Congress - in the sense that their party is almost sure to win at any election - is never really safe. Always, in order to be elected, candidates must first win their party's primary and then defeat the other party, and they can never be quite sure that their party will choose them again. So the first task of senators or representatives wishing to be re-elected is to keep themselves in favour with the voters of their own party in their own area: next, to attract the mass of voters who are not firmly committed to either of the parties. If they can make it appear that their activities at Washington have brought benefits to the district (or to the state as a whole if they are senators) they will win votes for that reason, both at the primary and at the regular election. On the other hand, if at Washington they have suggested policies which voters in their home districts or states do not like, they will risk losing votes for that reason. A member of Congress is subject to the discipline imposed by the need to please the voters at home, rather than to a discipline operated by congressional party leaders, so support for any party policy is in general insecure.
