Pt1420 Unit 4 Study Guide

Throughout the course of United States History, both parties would evolve from having clearly defined ideals to those which overlap as the socio-political landscape of America has grown in complexity prompting ambiguity of what being a Democrat or a Republican even means.
2.
Primary- Election in which voters decide which of the candidates within a party will represent the party in the general election.
Caucus- A local meeting of people where they vote on who they would like their party's nominee to be.
Convention- A meeting of party delegates to vote on matters of policy and in some cases to select party candidates for public office.
3.
In order to become the president of the United States, the candidates must first announce their intentions to run. Primaries then take place to determine the candidate that will represent the party as a whole, which is finalized during the national party conventions.
Then, candidates participate in presidential debates. After that, the people vote for their respective candidates in November while Electors cast their votes in the Electoral College in December. Finally, Congress counts the electoral votes in January to determine the next president.
4.
In order to ensure that our elections and campaigns are more democratic we have adopted things like the 17th Amendment which would allow senators to be elected though direct voting rather than state legislatures. In addition, the United States has also used something called a recall election in which voters can remove an elected official from office though a direct vote.
5.
The reason why the Electoral College was created was because our Founding Fathers were distrustful in allowing the president to be elected directly by the people. As a result, the Electoral College would be a system to determine who will be the next president and who will be the next vice president of the United States though the votes of electors from every state. This would create an indirect way for votes to elect their president.
6.
Multiparty systems differ from single-member districts with winner take all systems because rather that one party assuming a government position, a multiparty system makes it possible for multiple political parties to gain control of the government at one time.
7.
To be accurate and scientific, a poll must have questions that are easily quantifiable, the sample size must be varied though random sampling, there must be no bias, and the questions themselves must not have any implicit phrasing that may skew the results.
8.
The 2000 presidential election between George Bush and Al Gore would result much confusion as the state of Florida, a swing state, would utilize a butterfly ballot system that would incorrectly take electoral votes. In response to this, the state of Florida would replace these outdated machines in favor of touch screen electronic voting machines, making future elections precede more smoothly.
9.
In order to increase voter registrations some states have allowed Americans to cast their ballot early so that don’t need to appear in person to do so. Arizona and Michigan would also experiment with online voting as a means to increase accessibility to those that are unable to get to voting booths due to old age, or other reasons.
10.
The major reason that there is a relatively low voter turnout in America is due to the fact that not many people are registered to vote. Another factor is that these are strict ballot access laws that deter individuals to vote even if they are registered to. As a result, in 2002, the Help America Vote Act would be passed in order to make voting more accessible and easier to do than before.
11.
The role of the FEC is to administer and enforce campaign finance laws.
12.
As an offshoot of reserved powers found in the 10th Amendment, the states have the power to govern United States elections.