The American constitution provides presidential form of government. U.S constitution spent a lot of time in deciding the method of electing of the president. The founding fathers formed a “committee of eleven” that was given the task of determining how the president of the united states should be elected. The committee had four options:
a. A popular vote
b. Congressional vote
c. Election through legislature
d. The electoral college.
They choses the electoral college to avoid problems with the popular vote (citizens would chosose only candidates they knew)and congressional vote (the public would have no direct voice in electing the president). An election for President of the United States holds after every four years on Election Day.
Qualification: the constitution provides that a candidate for presidency must fulfil the following conditions:
1. He must be a natural born citizen of the united states
2. He must not be less than 35 years of age
3. He must have lived in the USA for not less than 14 years.
Election procedure: the constitution of the united states provides for the indirect election of American president yet in practice the elction of the president has become almost direct. Following are the stages of election:
1. Presidential nomination: the constitution never intended such nominations. Hence there is not a word in the constituion regarding such nomination. The candidates for the presidency is nominated by the parties though there is a general nominating process of the presidential candidate:
A . convention basics: a national comitte of each party calls its own convention and makes the requisite arrangements. Calls are issued since then and conventions meet during the summer. During the interval between calls and convention the political parties in each state select their delegates. Delegates are everyday citizens associated with political parties. Factions within a party will complete when delegates are won at primaries and caucuses; and delegates will nominate a new presidential candidate.
B. presidential primaries: state law and party rules has fixed the process for picking delegates. They do either by presidential primaries the most common method or by caucus. Primary is an election in which a party’s voters express a preference who they want to run as that party’s representative for president and select delegates to the national convention. Primary can be either closed primary that is only party members do voting or open primary where all eligible voters can vote.
C. Party caucus: the other method for selecting candidate. Its used by few states only. In this party voters meet at precinct level (an election district of a city or town), delegates are chosen for the national convention and they pledge to vote for a candidate. iowa one of the state holds its caucus first.
D. the national convention: delegates meet at a national convention to select their party candidate for president. a majority of delegate votes is needed to win the partys nomination. In most cases, the delegates let their chosen presidential candidate select a vice presidential candidate. National convention accomplishes three goals:
• Name the party president and vice presidential candidats
• Unite the party after all this division
• Adopt the party’s platform.
2. Presidential campaign: After the nomination of the presidential candidate , parties start nationwide presidential campaign. Each party issues a campaign text book embodying the party programme and biographics of the candidates. Political professionals, public relation experts and local workers help the candidates.
3. Nomination of electors: the national presidential election actually consists of a separate election in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C. in these 51 elections, the voters are really voting for electors pledged to one of the tickets. These electors make up the electoral college. the electors are usually important party leaders or prominent workers. In each state, the political parties put forth their list of electors who are nominated in whatever way the state laws or party rules prescribe.
4. Elections of the electors: Each of the states chooses as many electors as it has senators and member of representative in congress by popular vote. The people in each state vote for the electors and the candidate who receives the majority of votes in a state gets all of that states electors in the electoral college. The people voting for presidential candidate are actually voting to instruct the electors from the state to cast their votes for the same candidate.
5. Election of the president by the electors: The president is chosen by 538 people, who are the members of the electoral college. This number of electors are based on sum up of 435 popualtion based electors based on state representation + 100 electors (2 for every state) +3 for the disctrict of Coumbia, resulting total in 538. The electors elected then cast two votes, one for the president and the other for vice president. Each elector is pledged to vote for particular candidate and in most elections all the electors vote in accordance with the pledge they made. Althought there are ordinary situations too like in 1824 john quincy adam is elected, although Andrew Jackson wins the popular vote. A presidential candidate can get elcted only if he captures 269 plus 1 that is 270 votes.
6. Announcement of elected president: After all the process of election, the new president is installed into office on January 20 by taking the oath of office
Term of office: The presidential term is four years and according to the amendment 22nd, a president can stand re-election only one more time. • According to this amendment a single person can become the president America only for two times and more than 2 times the U.S constitution not give permission
Remuneration (Salary) of president: The U.S president receives a salary of $200,000 in a year and extra $ 50,000 for official expenses as well as enjoy other privileges such a travel and official entertainment allowances
Succession: The Article 2 section 1, clause 5 of the U.S constitution provides that if president office falls vacant due to his death, resignation, impeachment or inability to discharge the powers and duties of said office, the vice-president will perform his duties as acting president of this office with in the period of his term.
