About Minnesota 6

 This time, I will talk about primary elections. Today's class was too difficult to understand. We suffered from this class. A presidential candidate first makes on official announcement that he or she is running for president. Then, he or she or someone else on his or her behalf must file papers with the federal elections commission, which regulates the election process. Candidates usually make these announcements at least a year before the presidential election. Often there are several candidates in each political party running for president. Some states have primary elections and others have caucuses. These take place in late winter or early spring. A primary election looks very much like a general election: Voters get ballots that list the names of the people running for president that belong to their political party and then go to a polling place and vote for one of those people. A caucus is a gathering of people from the same political party who discuss the issues and the candidates at a central location and then cost their votes for candidates running in the same political party. And I learned each political party will chose one candidate in November at a national convention for that political party that takes place in the summer. Each state chooses a group of people to represent the state at the national convention. These delegates cast their votes for the candidate who was the top vote - getter in that state. I heard a system called the Electoral Collage is used in the United States to elect our president. Sometimes the candidate with fewer popular votes wins an election. There have been several presidents elected who did not win the popular vote because they received fewer electoral votes. The authors of the U.S. Constitution as a compromise created the Electoral Collage. Some politicians believed that a popular vote was not a good idea because many people were uninformed and unable to make a good decision when voting. Others did not want to give Congress the power to choose a president. The Electoral Collage was created to let the people vote for electors who then voted for the presidential candidate. And I heard each state has a number of electors equal to the number of its U.S. senators plus the number of its U.S. representatives. I learned currently, the Electoral Collage includes 538 electors, 535 for the total number of congressional members, and three who represent Washington, D.C., as allowed by the 23rd Amendment. Minnesota has 10 votes in the electoral collage. How is it possible for a candidate to have the majority of the people votes but to lose the election? Do you know? Here is another example: let's say that total of 2 million people vote in South and North Dakota for candidate A, and this is the majority, and that 1 million people vote in Georgia for candidate B, and this is the majority for the state, the candidate B wins the presidential Elections, as North and South Dakota have combined 6 electoral votes and Georgia has 15 electoral votes. I did not know of all about that. On the Monday following the second Wednesday in December, the electors of each state meet in their respective state capitals to officially cast their votes for president and vise president. These votes are then sealed and sent to the president of the Senate, who on January 6th opens and reads the votes in the presence of both houses of congress. I heard the winner is sworn into office at noon on January 20th. I learned presidential elections take place on the Tuesday following the first Monday of November. I thought why it is. In 1845 most Americans were farmers. Congress felt that November was the most convenient month because in November harvest was over and the weather was still mild enough for travel. At that time citizens had to vote at the country seat. For many people it meant travel by horseback or buggy and then a stay overnight. I was surprised. And because Sunday was reserved for church, Monday was not possible. Congress wanted to make sure that the elections never fell on November 1st, which is a Hold Day of Obligation for Catholic voters. And business people did their books for the previous month on the first of each month. Thus, the second week in November was chosen. I really did not know these things. I would like to know more details about elections and so on. Thank you!

757 words