Elections and Voting
Presidential Elections:
Pre-Primaries
• Begins up to four years prior to Election Day
• Has three functions:
1. Create fundraising networks
2. Pick up endorsements
3. Pick up campaign strategists
• Integral to providing momentum for a presidential campaign, especially
for fundraising e.g. in the first three months of 2007, combined, Obama,
Clinton and Romney had raised 20 million USD
• By February 2011, nearly 80 Republicans had declared themselves as
presidential candidates
Primaries and caucuses
• Primary season is January to June in the year of the Election
• Two types:
• Closed Primaries - voters may vote in a party’s primary only if they
are registered members of that party
• Open Primaries - a registered voter may vote in any party primary
regardless of his o her own party affiliation
• Democratic Party uses a proportional system - meaning that candidates
are allocated the same percentage of a state’s delegates as they
received in popular votes
• Also have two types of delegates: Pledged delegates (chosen at a
state level and required to cast a vote at the convention based on
the results of the primary in their state) and Super Delegates
(members of the Democratic Party establishment e.g. members of
Congress who are unplugged and free to vote for who they chose)
• Republican Party use a winner-takes-all system in which the winner of
the popular vote receives all the state’s delegates
Presidential Elections:
Pre-Primaries
• Begins up to four years prior to Election Day
• Has three functions:
1. Create fundraising networks
2. Pick up endorsements
3. Pick up campaign strategists
• Integral to providing momentum for a presidential campaign, especially
for fundraising e.g. in the first three months of 2007, combined, Obama,
Clinton and Romney had raised 20 million USD
• By February 2011, nearly 80 Republicans had declared themselves as
presidential candidates
Primaries and caucuses
• Primary season is January to June in the year of the Election
• Two types:
• Closed Primaries - voters may vote in a party’s primary only if they
are registered members of that party
• Open Primaries - a registered voter may vote in any party primary
regardless of his o her own party affiliation
• Democratic Party uses a proportional system - meaning that candidates
are allocated the same percentage of a state’s delegates as they
received in popular votes
• Also have two types of delegates: Pledged delegates (chosen at a
state level and required to cast a vote at the convention based on
the results of the primary in their state) and Super Delegates
(members of the Democratic Party establishment e.g. members of
Congress who are unplugged and free to vote for who they chose)
• Republican Party use a winner-takes-all system in which the winner of
the popular vote receives all the state’s delegates
