UNIT 7. ELECTIONS

Elections for Congress take place in two different subdivisions of the nation: congressional districts, each of which chooses one member of the House of Representatives, and states, each of which selects two members of the Senate. Congressional elections take place every two years, when all members of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate face re-election.

The House expanded as new states entered the Union and their population grew. But in 1929 its size was fixed at 435 (with three additional non-voting delegates from the District of Columbia). Since then the seats are divided among the states according to their population by a process called reapportionment after every ten-year federal census. The Constitution guarantees each state a minimum of one Representative. The number any state has above this minimum depends on how large its population is compared to that of the other states. Since the size of the House is constant, states with declining or slowly growing populations lose seats, and those with more rapidly growing populations gain seats.

The 1962 Supreme Court ruling in Baker v. Carr required reapportionment to follow to the one-man-one-vote principle by creating congressional districts with equal populations. Each district contains about 550,000 people.

The two-member constituencies for the Senate are a major exception to the principle of single-member election districts in the US. Even this function as one-member districts because only one of a state’s Senators is elected in an election year, unless both seats in the Senate are vacant because of unusual circumstances, such as death or retirement.

Congress does not choose the chief executive. Its members can vote without fear that the government will fall if they do not support their party. This means that they can give their first allegiance to the state or congressional district, rather than to their party or to the chief executive. Members of Congress owe their seats to elections in which their personalities and individual positions on issues matter more than party labels. The parties cannot control who enters congressional elections or directs these campaigns. And most candidates organize their own campaign staff and cover the cost of running for office through their own fund-raising. The party is but one of several sources of support.

To run for a seat in Congress, a person must usually win a primary election first. Two or more candidates from the same party compete in a primary for the right to represent the party in the general election campaign. They may put themselves forward or be recruited by the party. State laws require people to document the seriousness of their bid for the party label by collecting a certain number of signatures supporting their candidacy before their names are put on the primary ballot. Victory in a primary is often achieved with a plurality rather than a majority of the votes because the field of candidates is frequently between three and five. In some states, a run-off primary is held between the two front runners when no candidate wins a majority. In the general election there are usually two candidates, a Democrat and a Republican, although independent or third-party candidates sometimes run.

Being a member of Congress has become a career. Between 1946 and 2000 more than 90% of House members and about 75% of senators won re-election. They use their office for media attention, their names and faces are consequently better known, and they can take credit for helping to pass government programmes that benefit the state or district.

Electing the President is a long, complicated, and costly affair. After conferring with political advisors, individuals hold press conferences between eighteen months and a year before the election to announce that they are running for president. Several serious candidates from each party commonly propose themselves. Over the following months these candidates ‘test the water’ to see how warm support is for their candidacy in different parts of the nation. From February to June of the presidential election year the states conduct the process of narrowing the field of candidates to one from each party. Most states use presidential primaries for this purpose, but a few hold party meetings called presidential caucuses. Both procedures are indirect: party voters choose delegates to the party’s national convention and give these delegates the authority to make its official nomination of a candidate.

Because they result in the choice of roughly 80% of convention delegates, presidential primaries attract much more attention than the caucuses. Some are closed, that is, they are elections in which only registered party members can vote. Others are open primaries, in which voters from either party can participate. During the ‘primary season’ the media keep a running count of the delegates pledged to each candidate and track the front runners’ progress toward a majority of delegate votes at the party conventions in July and August.

Caucuses and primaries bind delegates only on the first roll-call of the states. If no candidate wins a majority, they are free to switch loyalties on later votes, and the final choice of the convention could be unexpected.

But, if present trends continue, the interest in the convention will lie elsewhere. Because the convention is televised, both parties present a ‘packaged media show’ of unity to demonstrate that the internal disagreements of the primary season are forgotten. But sometimes elements in the party can gain delegate majorities and promote their views to the disadvantage of the candidate. The convention agrees on a policy programme called the platform.

The parties and their candidates eventually face each other in the post-convention campaign that runs from late August until the voters go to the polls at the beginning of November. Candidates still criss-cross the country to make their stands on the issues known, but now stay in a city only long enough to arrange for the media to take them into the public’s living rooms. Short TV ‘spots’ are used by all candidates, but most depend on getting free coverage by making the evening news with their regular campaign activities. Only a multi-millionaire candidate can afford to buy half-hour ‘infomercials’ on TV to present his views. In the closing months of the campaign, nationally televised debates between the candidates offer them the best chance to exploit the media for a campaign boost.

On Election Day the TV networks display huge maps of the country to track two different tallies of the results. One is the ‘popular vote’ (a count of how many voters across the country have supported the candidates). At first these figures are estimates compiled by polling organizations who ask people how they voted as they exit the polling stations. In late evening the count for eastern states may be official. But because of the difference in time zones, the popular vote in the Pacific West will not be known until very late.

The popular vote, however, does not determine who wins. Not only are the candidates chosen in an indirect fashion though the primaries, but the final election is also decided indirectly. In accordance with rules in the Constitution, the popular vote is not counted nationally, but by state. The second tally on election-day television screens is the electoral college vote.

Electoral College is the collective name for a group of electors, nominated by political parties within the states and popularly elected, who meet to vote for the president and vice-president. Each party within a state selects a slate of electors numerically equal to the state’s congressional delegation-representatives plus senators. The electors normally pledge to vote for the nominees of their party, but they are not constitutionally required to do so. When the American people vote for president and vice-president, they are actually voting for slates of electors pledged to their candidates. Because the electors usually are chosen at large, the electoral vote of each state win the state’s entire electoral vote. The candidates receiving a majority of the total electoral vote in the United States are elected. The Constitution leaves the selection of electors to the state legislators, stipulating only that their number equal the congressional delegation and officers of the federal government are not eligible. Candidates for elector usually are nominated by party conventions, in primary elections, or by party organizations.

The electors, popularly elected on Election Day meet in their respective state capitals on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December in presidential election years. They vote by ballot separately for president and vice-president. To discourage having a president and vice-president from the same state, at least one of the candidates for whom they vote must not be a resident of the elector’s own state. Certified lists of votes cast for the two offices are transmitted to the president of the U.S. Senate – since 1950 through the General Services Administration. On the following January 6 the president of the Senate, presiding at a joint session of Congress, opens the certificates, and the votes are counted by tellers. The election is decided by a majority of the total Electoral College vote. In the absence of a majority of electoral votes for the president, the House of Representatives proceeds immediately to elect by ballot from the three candidates standing highest in electoral votes. Each state has only one vote, which is cast as a majority of its representatives determines, and a majority of all the states is necessary for election. For vice-president, if a majority is lacking in the Electoral College, the Senate effects from the two highest candidates. A majority vote is necessary for election.

In recent years there has been discussion about eliminating the Electoral College procedure. Many people think that the presidential election system, in theory and practice, had undemocratic elements. There has long been debate about whether election of the President through the Electoral College should be continued, but no concerted effort for change emerged. Critics reminded the public that a close election could be thrown into the House of Representatives to be decided by an undemocratic one-vote-per-state ballot there, as the Constitution requires if no candidate wins a majority in the Electoral College. A candidate could win the popular vote but lose in the college, political scientists noted. Supporters of the status quo noted that in the American federal system the college properly gives weight to states and that it produces a clearer result.

The political process does not stop after an election. Many organizations with special interests maintain paid representatives in the national and “state capitals”. They are called lobbyists who try to influence government policy in favour of the organizations or interest groups which they represent. Lobbying is part of the American political system.

TASK 1. Find the English equivalents for the words and word-combinations given below.

Повторное назначение; избирательный округ; после совещания; прослеживать; преданность, комплексное представление средств массовой информации; эксплуатировать; две разные группы; дать обязательство; оговаривать в качестве особого условия; подходящий; удостоверение; исключать.

TASK 2. Match the English words and word-combinations given below with their Russian equivalents.

1) получить … процентов голосов на общих выборах	a) to run for president on a party’s ticket
2) голосовать за кандидатов от разных партий на различные должности	b) to vote the straight ticket
3) привлекательность кандидата	c) primary
4) национальная конвенция	d) census
5) голосовать за кандидатов от одной и той же партии на различные должности	e) nominee
6) кандидат, выдвигаемый какой-л. партией	f) to receive … percent of the popular vote
7) баллотироваться на пост президента от какой-л. партии	g) to receive an overwhelming majority of votes
8) первичные выборы	h) a national convention
9) получить подавляющее большинство голосов	i) charisma
10) перепись населения	j) to split one’s vote
11) верность, преданность	k) a slate of electors
12) внутреннее противоречие	l) the internal disagreements
13) список избирателей, выборщиков	m) allegiance

TASK 3. Answer the following questions.