Learn

You’ve probably heard a lot of talk lately about the Presidential elections. Did you know that the rules about electing the President are written in a document called The Constitution? To be President, you have to be born in the United States, live in the United States for at least 14 years, and you have to be at least 35 years old.

There is a presidential election every 4 years, when the people of the United States vote for the person they want as president for the next four years, called a term. The Constitution says that a President cannot serve for more than 2 terms, which is 8 years.

A candidate for President is someone who wants to be elected and asks people to vote for him or her. Candidates campaign long before election time. A campaign means that the candidate travels all over the country telling people why they should vote for him or her.

Unlike the parties you go to with your friends, in politics, a party is a group of people who think alike about various things, like how much money to spend on people’s welfare, taxes, social security, and national defense. The United States has two main parties–the Democrats and the Republicans. Though we usually only hear about these two parties, there are also other lesser-known political parties, such as the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the Peace & Freedom Party, the American Party, the Socialist Party and the Natural Law Party.

The candidate tells people which party he is a member of. The voters in each party decide among the candidates in a chain of preliminary elections called caucuses or primaries. Each state holds its own caucus or primary, where the voters decide which candidate in their party they will support.

After that, each state holds a big meeting called a convention, where they elect delegates–people who support their favorite candidates. Then each party holds its national convention when all the delegates get together and select one candidate to nominate for President and one to nominate for Vice-President. These two nominees are called a ticket.

After the conventions, the nominees have debates to discuss important issues and tell voters why they should be elected instead of the other parties’ nominees. Finally, on Election Day, everyone who is at least 18 years old can vote. When you register to vote, your name is put on a list so they can be sure that you only vote once, for whichever candidate you want to win.

Votes are counted by state. After Election Day, each state assigns people called electors who vote for the ticket that won their state. The electors then get together at a big meeting called the Electoral College, where they elect the President and Vice-President, who are then sworn in and begin their term.

The next presidential elections are in November, 2004. Who do you think will be the next president of the United States?