The document provides an overview of the process for electing the US president, including primaries, caucuses, the electoral college system, and arguments for and against potential reforms. It explains that primary elections are used by political parties to select nominees, while the general election uses an electoral college system where voters indirectly elect electors who then vote for the president. Key debates around the electoral college include whether the candidate with the most nationwide votes should always win and concerns about disproportionate influence of some states.

1. Path to the
Presidency
The Presidential Campaign
Process

2. Why have elections?
• Two methods of changing governments: ballot
or bullet. Ballot is better!
• Confers legitimacy on government (even
authoritarian regimes use pretend elections)
• Provides accountability – government must
pay attention to the needs of the electorate
(the voters)
• Tells government what policies the people
support – provides a mandate (permission or
command to carry out certain policies)

3. Primaries
• Definition: voters decide which of the
candidates within a party will represent the
party in the general election
• Staggered over a couple of months to give
candidates time to get to all states
• Started in early 1900s with Progressive Era,
to shift power from party leaders to voters

4. Closed Primaries
• Definition: only registered party members
may vote
• Why have a closed primary?
• Prevents members of other party from crossover
voting: crossing over and influencing the
opposition (voting for the least electable
candidate)
• Constitutional right to freedom of association –
party members should have right to come
together to choose their own candidate

5. Open Primaries
• Definition: anyone (party members,
independents and even members of other
party) may vote
• Typically, voter may only vote in ONE party’s
primary, not both – so they must choose
• Often leads to most centrist candidate winning
• Michigan holds open primaries – we don’t like
the idea of being forced to register our
opinions with the government in order to vote

6. Winner-take-all Primaries
• Definition: Candidate who wins the most
votes in a state wins all of that states
delegates [people who go to the national
convention and vote for the candidate their
voters want them to, regardless of their own
opinions]
• Democrats don’t do this – less representative
of the voters’ opinions
• Republicans use this in some states –
shortens divisive primary season to get to
general elections

7. Proportional Primaries
• Definition: candidates are awarded delegates
in proportion to the number of popular votes
they win
• Democrats use this in every state,
Republicans in some states
• Fairer than winner-take-all, but also
lengthens primary season, which can be
quite fractious (see Sanders and Clinton)

8. Caucuses - Advantages
• Definition: Local meetings of party members;
they gather face-to-face, argue, discuss the
candidates and issues
• At caucuses, spending time debating and
learning = well-informed vote, whereas
primary voters learn from ads and media
• Benefits candidates with supporters who see
themselves as part of a movement
• Costs millions less to state than primaries

9. Caucuses - Disadvantages
• Goes against idea of voting being a private
act
• Exhausting and time-consuming, not good
for introverts 
• Rewards more extreme candidates because
it attracts more extreme voters (only strong
party faithful are willing to take the time –
numbers of voters are much smaller than in
primaries – often less than 10% of eligible
voters)

10. Early State Advantage
Iowa and New Hampshire have the first
primary and caucus, so they have
special importance, even though they
are small states and do not particularly
represent the American population

11. Possible Solution: Front-loading
• Definition: States sometimes move their
primaries forward to be more relevant
• Effects:
• Crowds the early part of the season
• Makes it difficult for candidates to
campaign in all the states holding
primaries at once or to come from behind
• This gives an advantage to the front-
runner and the candidate who raised more
money before the primaries began

12. Possible Solution: Regional Primaries
• Definition – Country would be divided into
five regions and each region would hold all
their primaries during first week of every
month of primary season (order set by
lottery)
• Goals:
• Would end the dominance of Iowa and New
Hampshire and more equitably distribute
influence of states
• Would allow candidates to focus on each
region’s concerns individually

13. National Conventions
• Conventions in the past actually did choose
nominee, with party leaders in heated
negotiations, last-minute deals and many
votes; delegates had freedom to maneuver
and conventions could be exciting and
unpredictable (DNC took 103 ballots to
nominate John W. Davis in 1924)
• Now, nominee is decided by primary vote
and conventions are just big, extravagant
parties with many balloons

14. Delegates
• Chosen from elite group of party insiders
and grassroots activists
• Their income and education levels tend to be
far above average American’s
• Democrats have tried hard to include women
and minorities; Republicans are still
struggling with that (2016 convention was
mocked in media for being so white)
• They are pledged to vote for a candidate
who won a certain percentage of their state

15. Superdelegates
• Democrats have a special group called
Superdelegates – special slots reserved for
party officials who are not pledged to a
particular candidate (can vote as they wish)
• Attempt to maintain a bit of control over
nomination process by party (because voters
kept choosing losing candidates)
• Republicans don’t use superdelegates, but
they also don’t force delegates to select the
candidate their state’s primary chose

16. Obligatory John Oliver video:
Primaries/Caucuses
John Oliver video

17. General Election
• Once the parties choose their
nominees, the Democratic candidate
and the Republican candidate (and
any third party candidates) compete
in the general election
• They campaign all over the country
to try to convince voters they will do
the best job - giving speeches,
having debates, shaking voters’
hands

18. Election Day
• Held on the Tuesday following the first
Monday in November
• Voters head to the polls to cast their
ballots.
• But . . . . . .

19. THEY AREN’T
ACTUALLY ELECTING
THE PRESIDENT

20. HOW THE ELECTORAL
COLLEGE WORKS

21. Americans DO NOT vote
directly for President:
• When you vote for President in November,
you are actually voting for electors
• A vote for the Democratic candidate is
actually a vote for the Democratic electors; a
vote for the Republican candidate is actually
a vote for the Republican electors
• It is the electors who cast the official vote for
President

22. • Each state has as many
electors as it has
representatives and senators
in Congress

23. – Therefore, Michigan has 16
electors
– District of Colombia gets 3
electors (even though it has no
reps/senators)
– The total number of electors:
538
– A candidate needs at least 270
electoral votes to win

24. • Whichever candidate wins
the majority of the state’s
vote (even if it is only by the
slimmest margin), wins ALL
of the state’s electoral votes

25. After Election Day:
–Electors gather at the state capital in
December
–The electors of the party whose
presidential candidate won a
majority of the state’s popular vote
in November cast all the state’s
electoral votes for their candidate

26. –Votes are transferred to the
President of the Senate, who
counts them before both houses
of Congress
–If no candidate receives at least
270 electoral votes, the House
of Representatives chooses
between the three leading
candidates

27. Why did the Founders do it?
• In a land of loosely-knit former colonies
where people did not know or trust
each other and could barely
communicate, Founders did not trust
the people to make an informed choice
• Created a weighted voting system
designed to give more power to states
with more voters but still allow small
states to swing elections

28. Advantages of Electoral College
• Usually, this system gives the winner a
bigger majority than s/he would have gotten
with just the popular vote (gives new
president more of a mandate)
• Makes the candidates campaign all over the
country – they can’t just win the most
populous states

29. Advantages of Electoral College
• Reduces voter fraud – cheating only happens
in swing states [states that could go either
way]; no point in stealing a few votes in a state
in which one candidate is sure to win

30. Disadvantages of Electoral College
• Winner of the popular vote does not
necessarily win the election
• People feel disenfranchised [ability to
vote taken away] – the people don’t
really get to choose president
(especially if the state is heavily for the
opposing party)

31. Disadvantages of Electoral College
• Magnifies small margins – makes
winner seem to have won by more than
s/he actually did
• Distorts the campaign process by
giving swing states excessive
importance

32. Disadvantages of Electoral College
• Gives small states a disproportionate
number of votes
• EX) Combined population of KA, NE, SD, ND,
MT, WY, ID, UT is about same as MI
• But together, they have 33 votes, while MI has
16
• It’s too complicated - most voters don’t
understand it

33. Changes?
• After every close election, amendments are
proposed to change the electoral college
• There have been more than 500 proposals
to change it since 1796 (just 7 years after
the Constitution was adopted) but it
REFUSES TO DIE
• One reason: changing it would require
amending the Constitution, and small states
would have to agree, which is unlikely (they
would be giving up power)

34. Possible Changes
Popular Vote
• Abolish Electoral College
• President selected directly by vote of the people
Congressional District Plan
• Each candidate would receive on electoral vote
for each congressional district that s/he wins in
a state, and winner of overall popular vote of
state receives 2 bonus votes (ME and NE do
this)
Keep College, Abolish Electors
• Electoral votes would automatically go to winner
of popular vote; no actual human electors could