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Keeping Your Word: Delegates, Electors, Partys, Conventions, & the Savior Government
Although each individual's vote counts, electors officially vote the president into office.
The United States is a federal republic, so citizens do not directly elect the president and vice president. Instead, delegates for each political party meet to vote on which people will become their party's candidates. After the presidential election is held in November, electors in the Electoral College, acting as representatives of the citizens, cast their votes for president.
Delegates
In the U.S. party system, delegates from each party choose their party's presidential candidate at a party convention or caucus. Each political party holds a convention on the state level and then holds a national convention. In theory, delegates vote for the nominee that they feel best represents the wishes of their state, but in practice, they often vote based on other influences, desires and political expectations. At the end of each convention, lists of the delegates and their votes are made public.
How Are Delegates Chosen?
The rules for choosing delegates differ between the Republican and Democratic parties and for each state. In general they are chosen to represent their state at their party's convention. Delegates must vote for one candidate, so they are chosen based on a desire to nominate a particular candidate as well as a loyalty to that candidate. Delegates are usually individuals active in local politics. In the Green Party, delegates are chosen by their state party or party-associated organization. In states with voter registration by political party, Green Party delegates must be registered as members of the Green Party. Likewise, in the Libertarian Party, delegates must be members of the party. Libertarian Party delegates are selected according to methods particular to each affiliate party.
Electors
The word "elector" appears in Article II of the U.S. Constitution and in the 12th Amendment. According to the U.S. Electoral College website, the founders of the U.S. based the idea of having electors on a system used by the Holy Roman Empire. Princes in Roman-controlled Germany voted for the German King/Emperor. The citizens of the Holy Roman Empire were not directly involved in the election, but were instead represented in the vote by their prince. The electors have a similar role in the U.S. Electoral College. They vote for the presidential and vice presidential candidate that voters in their state choose.
How Are Electors Chosen?
Electors are chosen differently depending on the state. In general, they are chosen because of their loyalty to their particular party. To be qualified to be an elector, an individual must comply with his state's certification of electors on its Certificates of Ascertainment. However, members of Congress and employees of the federal government are prohibited from being electors.
Difference Between Delegates and Electors
The primary difference between a delegate and an elector is that delegates are individuals who represent their state in selecting a political party's presidential and vice presidential nominees, while electors are individuals who cast their state's electoral votes for president and vice president after the presidential election is held.
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How Delegates to Presidential Conventions Are Selected
In the summer of every presidential election year, political parties in the United States typically conduct national conventions to choose their presidential candidates. At the conventions, the presidential candidates are selected by groups of delegates from each state. After a series of speeches and demonstrations in support of each candidate, the delegates begin to vote, state-by-state, for the candidate of their choice. The first candidate to receive a preset majority number of delegate votes becomes the party's presidential candidate. The candidate selected to run for president then selects a vice presidential candidate.
Delegates to the national conventions are selected at the state level, according to rules and formulas determined by each political party's state committee. While these rules and formulas can change from state-to-state and from year-to-year, there remain two methods by which the states choose their delegates to the national conventions: the caucus and the primary.
The Primary
In states holding them, presidential primary elections are open to all registered voters. Just like in general elections, voting is done through a secret ballot. Voters may choose from among all registered candidates and write ins are counted. There are two types of primaries, closed and open. In a closed primary, voters may vote only in the primary of the political party in which they registered. For example, a voter who registered as a Republican can only vote in the Republican primary. In an open primary, registered voters can vote in the primary of either party, but are allowed to vote in only one primary. Most states hold closed primaries.
Primary elections also vary in what names appear on their ballots. Most states hold presidential preference primaries, in which the actual presidential candidates' names appear on the ballot. In other states, only the names of convention delegates appear on the ballot. Delegates may state their support for a candidate or declare themselves to be uncommitted.
In some states, delegates are bound, or "pledged" to vote for the primary winner in voting at the national convention. In other states some or all delegates are "unpledged," and free to vote for any candidate they wish at the convention.
The Caucus
Caucuses are simply meetings, open to all registered voters of the party, at which delegates to the party's national convention are selected. When the caucus begins, the voters in attendance divide themselves into groups according to the candidate they support. The undecided voters congregate into their own group and prepare to be "courted" by supporters of other candidates.
Voters in each group are then invited to give speeches supporting their candidate and trying to persuade others to join their group. At the end of the caucus, party organizers count the voters in each candidate's group and calculate how many delegates to the county convention each candidate has won.
As in the primaries, the caucus process can produce both pledged and unpledged convention delegates, depending on the party rules of the various states.
How Delegates are Awarded
The Democratic and Republican parties use different methods for determining how many delegates are awarded to, or "pledged" to vote for the various candidates at their national conventions.
Democrats use a proportional method. Each candidate is awarded a number of delegates in proportion to their support in the state caucuses or the number of primary votes they won.
For example, consider a state with 20 delegates at a democratic convention with three candidates. If candidate "A" received 70% of all caucus and primary votes, candidate "B" 20% and candidate "C" 10%, candidate "A" would get 14 delegates, candidate "B" would get 4 delegates and candidate "C" would get 2 delegates.
In the Republican Party, each state chooses either the proportional method or a "winner-take-all" method of awarding delegates. Under the winner-take-all method, the candidate getting the most votes from a state's caucus or primary, gets all of that state's delegates at the national convention.
Key Point: The above are general rules. Primary and caucus rules and methods of convention delegate allocation differ from state-to-state and can be changed by party leadership. To find out the latest information, contact your state's Board of Elections.
by William C. Kimberling, Deputy Director FEC National Clearinghouse on Election Administration
The Manner of Choosing Electors
From the outset, and to this day, the manner of choosing its State's Electors was left to each State legislature. And initially, as one might expect, different States adopted different methods.
Some State legislatures decided to choose the Electors themselves. Others decided on a direct popular vote for Electors either by Congressional district or at large throughout the whole State. Still others devised some combination of these methods. But in all cases, Electors were chosen individually from a single list of all candidates for the position.
During the 1800's, two trends in the States altered and more or less standardized the manner of choosing Electors. The first trend was toward choosing Electors by the direct popular vote of the whole State (rather than by the State legislature or by the popular vote of each Congressional district). Indeed, by 1836, all States had moved to choosing their Electors by a direct statewide popular vote except South Carolina which persisted in choosing them by the State legislature until 1860. Today, all States choose their Electors by direct statewide election except Maine (which in 1969) and Nebraska (which in 1991) changes to selecting two of its Electors by a statewide popular vote and the remainder by the popular vote in each Congressional district.
Along with the trend toward their direct statewide election came the trend toward what is called the "winner-take-all" system of choosing Electors. Under the winner-take-all system, the presidential candidate who wins the most popular votes within a State wins all of that State's Electors. This winner-take-all system was really the logical consequence of the direct statewide vote for Electors owing to the influence of political parties. For in a direct popular election, voters loyal to one political party's candidate for president would naturally vote for that party's list of proposed Electors. By the same token, political parties would propose only as many Electors as there were electoral votes in the State so as not to fragment their support and thus permit the victory of another party's Elector.
There arose, then, the custom that each political party would, in each State, offer a "slate of Electors" - a list of individuals loyal to their candidate for president and equal in number to that State's electoral vote. The voters of each State would then vote for each individual listed in the slate of whichever party's candidate they preferred. Yet the business of presenting separate party slates of individuals occasionally led to confusion. Some voters divided their votes between party lists because of personal loyalties to the individuals involved rather than according to their choice for president. Other voters, either out of fatigue or confusion, voted for fewer than the entire party list. The result, especially in close elections, was the occasional splitting of a State's electoral vote. This happened as late as 1916 in West Virginia when seven Republican Electors and one Democrat Elector won.
Today, the individual party candidates for Elector are seldom listed on the ballot. Instead, the expression "Electors for" usually appears in fine print on the ballot in front of each set of candidates for president and vice president (or else the State law specifies that votes cast for the candidates are to be counted as being for the slate of delegates pledged to those candidates). It is still true, however, that voters are actually casting their votes for the Electors for the presidential and vice presidential candidates of their choice rather than for the candidates themselves.
The Time of Choosing Electors
The time for choosing Electors has undergone a similar evolution. For while the constitution specifically gives to the congress the power to "determine the Time of choosing the Electors", the Congress at first gave some latitude to the States.
For the first fifty years of the Federation, Congress permitted the States to conduct their presidential elections (or otherwise to choose their Electors) anytime in a 34 day period before the first Wednesday of December which was the day set for the meeting of the Electors in their respective States. The problems born of such an arrangement are obvious and were intensified by improved communications. For the States which voted later could swell, diminish, or be influenced by a candidate's victories in the States which voted earlier. In close elections, the States which voted last might well determine the outcome. (And it is perhaps for this reason that South Carolina, always among the last States to choose its Electors, maintained for so long its tradition of choosing them by the State legislature. In close elections, the South Carolina State legislature might well decide the presidency!)
The Congress, in 1845, therefore adopted a uniform day on which the States were to choose their Electors. That day - the Tuesday following the first Monday in November in years divisible by four - continues to be the day on which all the States now conduct their presidential elections.
