RENDEZ-VOUS WITH AMERICA, Chapter 6

An Explanation of the US Presidential Election System

Patrick Siegler-Lathrop

CHAPTER 6

I have lived in Europe for decades, and have witnessed many US Presidential elec-tions. At every election, non-Americans ask me about the process, and I see that they do not understand it well. I propose in a series of short chapters to explain the complex and cumbersome US Presidential election and political system[1].

Short Summary of Previous Chapters: As we learned in Chapters 1-2, the US Presidential election is not a national election; it is the sum of fifty, simultaneous, independent, winner take all plurality elections, one per state, for the Electoral College votes of each state. This presidential election is indirect and the result of the popular votes is of no importance, the only thing that counts to win the presidential election is to get 270 Electoral College Votes. This also means that a candidate can lose the popular vote and still win the election, as was the case for Trump in 2016 and George W. Bush in 2000. In Chapter 3, we reviewed the historical origin of the Electoral College System and saw how it functions. Chapter 4 introduced us to the fact that the U.S. political system has been dominated for 170 years by two and only two Parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, and it also presented us with a summary analysis of the historical role of racial politics in the U.S., and the development in the last decades of negative partisanship, where people vote more because they dislike or even hate the other party rather than because they favor the party they vote for. Chapter 5 explained Red, Blue and Swing States, and their role in US presidential elections, and showed how the presidential election is decided by an incredibly small number of votes in a few Swing States. In 2016, had less than .03% of the votes (3 out of 10,000) cast in three specific states gone to Clinton rather than Trump, she would have won the election. This means both Parties invest enormous focus and money on a small number of voters and can basically ignore much of the rest of the US population with regard to Presidential elections.

This Chapter 6 looks at elections other than the Presidential election, with focus on Senate and House of Representatives elections.

EXPLANATION - Elections of the Senate & House of Representatives

A.             The U.S. system of checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution requires, for the promulgation of laws, cooperation between the Executive and Legislative branches of government: for laws proposed by Congress to be passed they have to be signed by the President (non-signature by the Presi-dent means a veto which can be overcome only by two-thirds majorities of both Chambers of Congress. Histori-cally, Congress has overcome only 7% of Presidential vetoes). But in addition the Constitu-tion provides that laws can be presented for signature to the President only if they have been approved by a majority in both the Senate and the House of Repre-senta--tives. In the past, even when one party did not control both Chambers, it was common for Republi-cans and Democrats to work together to reach the necessary compro-mises to pass signifi-cant legislation. However, over the past 20 years, the growth of partisan-ship, including negative partisanship, and the movement of both parties away from shared ideals and ideas have made it extremely difficult to find consensus between the two parties for major legislation to be passed, and we have generally witnessed gridlock in Congress and in the federal government.

This increase in partisanship has put an enormous premium on the objective not only to win the presidency but also to obtain a majority in both Chambers, the Senate and the House of Repre-sentatives. This was the case, for example, after the election of 2016 when the Republican Party won the Presiden-cy with Trump and also a majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Republican control of the Executive and Legislative branches led to Congressional passage of the major Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in late 2017. However, in the legislative elec-tion of 2018 (a non-presidential election year), the Democratic Party gained control of the House of Representatives, and no major new legislation has been passed since then, except for the recent agreement between Republicans and Democrats over the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to provide relief in response to the pandemic crisis.  

The US system includes multiple elections: i) Presidential elections every 4 years (including 2020), ii) Federal Senate and House of Representatives elections every 2 years, iii) Senate and House of Representatives elections in most of the 50 states generally every 2 years, iv) Governors' elections generally every 4 years, but not necessarily simulta-neous with Federal elections, v) Local elections generally every two years. Each of these elections operates with its own rules and is subject to specific political conside-rations.

B.             Straight Ticket & Split Ticket Voting: Although congressional elections are very important, the main prize remains the presidential election, not only for the ob-vious reason that the Executive Branch led by the President has a great deal of power to promote the agenda of his/her party, but also because the winner of the Presidential election in each state is likely to be in a strong position to win Senate, House and other elections in that state. For the November 3, 2020 election, every American voter will be presented with a ballot including many names and cate-gories: candi-dates for President (in all states), for federal Senator (in 34 states), for their member of the federal House of Representa-tive (in all states), for Governor (in 11 states), for State Senator (in 43 states), for State House of Representatives (in 43 states), for other state executive positions, as well as local election candidates. For virtually every position, there will be a Democratic and a Republican candidate. As was noted in earlier Chap-ters, Americans identify them-selves more and more tribally with one Party, Repub-lican or Democrat, and many voters will vote for the same party throughout the ballot, refer-red to as a Straight ticket vote, to be contrasted with Split Ticket voting, where an elector may vote for a Democratic President but a Republi-can Senator or Congress-per-son. Since the mid-1980s, the impact of Split Ticket voting has declined dramatic-ally. For example as we can see in the graph below, in Senate elections in 1984, half of the electorate split their ticket, but in 2016, for the first time, every Senate seat went to the same party that won the presidential vote in that state, once again confirming the dramatic increase in partisanship in the U.S. electorate. If this trend persists in 2020, whoever wins the Presidential election is likely to succeed in elections for the Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as state and local elections.

From Sabato's Crystal Ball, University of Virginia

C.            Senate Elections: The U.S. Senate has 100 Senators, two from each state; each Senator is elected for 6 years, with one-third (33, or 34) of the Senate renewed every two years. In 2020, 33 Senate seats will be subject to a regular election plus 2 Special elections to replace vacant seats. Of these 35 Senate elec-tions, 22 incum-bents are Republi-cans and 13 are Democrats, meaning that with a much larger pool subject to reelection the Republicans have in theory a greater risk of losing seats. This imba-lance is not unusual, as often one party dominates a Senatorial election, and six years later, when the political climate may have changed, the party that won the most seats six years earlier has the most Senate seats at risk. This is exactly the position the Demo-crats inherited in the 2018 Senate election, six years after Obama's successful re-election in 2012, 26 Democratic seats were contested against only 9 Republican ones in 2018 (we may note that in the non-presidential election year of 2022, the Demo-crats will again be favored with only 11 contested Senate seats as compared to 23 for the Repub-li--cans, whereas the tables will be turned in 2024, when 23 Democratic Senate seats will be at risk as compared to 10 for the Republicans).

Since 1913, Senators are elected by popular vote in statewide elections, with a single ballot, plurality winner. Just like at the presidential level, although there are minority party candidates who can influence the result by drawing votes away from one of the leading candidates, the contest is virtually always between a Democratic and a Republican candidate, who are each chosen by their state parties, almost always through primary elections. We have seen in an earlier Chapter that single ballot, plurality elections tend to reinforce a two-party system.

What does the 2020 Senate election look like? The Republican Party controls the Senate, with 53 Republican Senators compared to 45 Democratic ones, plus two Independents who caucus with the Democrats, so we may consider the current Republican/-Democratic split as 53-47. The Vice-Presi-dent of the United States occupies the role of President of the Senate, and holds a deciding vote in the event of a 50-50 tie. This means the following possible results for the 2020 Senatorial election:

1.      The Republicans will maintain control of the Senate if:

i.    Trump is reelected and the Republicans do not lose more than 3 net seats, or

ii.  Biden is elected and the Republicans do not lose more than 2 net seats.

2.      The Democrats will gain control of the Senate if:

i.    Trump is reelected and the Democrats gain at least 4 net seats, or

ii.   Biden is elected and the Democrats gain at least 3 net seats

As of this writing, more than 4 months to the 2020 election, making any forecast is hypothetical, but let us examine the Senate seats up for election in 2020 to get a feel for the political calculations that each of the Parties is making. The Table below lists the 35 contested Senate Seats in 2020 in increasing order of theoretical vulnerability, and includes an opinion of the historical political leaning for each state. I have also added two columns showing the amount of money the leading Senatorial candidates have raised so far, according to publicly available information. Over the past 20 years, in 81.1% of the cases, the Senate candidate who spent the most money won, so having available money to spend is a good indication of the probability of success. In the list, we can observe certain states where the challenging Party has not raised much money, suggesting they do not consider they have a reasonable chance of winning. However, the figures in the table should be considered tentative, as much money will be raised in the coming months and some states have not yet selected Senatorial candidates; in those states, it is only once they have been selected that will begin the major political and fundraising effort.

*  Figures from the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, Money raised until a date ending from March to June, 2020

·      At the top of the list, the exceptional case of a Democratic Senator from the very Red State of Alabama, that went for Trump by 28% in 2016, with the nearly certain result that the Republican Party will regain this seat in spite of the money raised by the Democratic Senator (the dollars raised are misleading as the Republicans have not yet selected their candidate, who once chosen will be able to raise large sums). The virtually certain Republican win in Alabama means the Democratic Party has to gain 4 Republican seats, without losing any others, to gain control of the Senate if they win the Presidential election (and a net gain of 5 if they lose the presidency);

·      The next four states have Republican Senators in Swing states where the presiden-tial election is viewed as a Toss-Up, with Colorado and Maine having favored Clinton in 2016 and Arizona and North Carolina having voted for Trump, but in all four states the margin of victory was less than 5%. These are going to be major battleground states, with Democrats investing heavily to seek to unseat Republican incumbents, who will fight hard to retain the seats. We can already note that large sums have been raised by candidates of both Parties, especially in Arizona which as of this writing is one of the most expensive Senate elections;

·      The next five are Swing States which historically have leaned towards one Party: Michigan with a Demo-cratic Senator leans Democrat, whereas four Republican Senate seats in Swing States leaning Republican: Georgia twice, Iowa and Texas. In these states it will be harder for the incumbent Party to be ousted, we can already note that the Democratic candidates have raised little money in Georgia or Texas, clear signs that as of this writing, the Democrats do not consider it worth-while to invest heavily in the Senate race there, whereas we see that the Republi-cans are competing actively for the Michigan Senate seat;

·      The following three, Montana, South Carolina and Tennessee are Red States with Republican Senators, leaning Republican, suggesting Democrats will have difficulty beating incumbents. The money raised indicates the Democrats are fighting hard only for the seat in South Carolina;

·      The next four, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Virginia and New Mexico, are Demo-cra-tic leaning Swing States with Democratic Senators. The modest sums raised by Republican challengers indicates the Party does not consider them worth the fight;

·      All the others are Red or Blue States with the Senate seat "Likely" or "Solid" to remain in their current camp. In almost all cases, we can see that the incumbent Party has raised much more money than the challenger, except in Kentucky, where the Democratic Party is pouring resources in the hope to pull an unlikely upset to oust Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.

Just as with the Presidential election, the high level of partisanship in the U.S. elec-to-rate means there are relatively few uncertain elections, control of the Senate is likely to depend on the result of a very small number of highly fought elections in a few Swing States, with both Parties pour-ing re-sources to convince a small number of critical voters to vote for their candidate (it takes at least $10 million, and sometimes much more, to have a chance to win a contested Senate seat). 

On the basis of current forecasts, we may conclude, with regard to the Senate:

- If the Republican Party wins the presidency, it is highly likely they will retain control of the Senate;            

- If the Democrats win the presidency in a very close contest, it is not unlikely that the Republican Party will retain, perhaps by only one or two seats, its current majority in the Senate;

- However, given the dominance of Straight Ticket voting, if the Democrats win the presidency comfortably, or by a landslide, then it is highly likely they will also win enough of those close elections to win control of the Senate. 

D. Election to the House of Representatives, Congressional Districts, Redistrict-ing, Gerrymandering: Every two years, every member of the House of Represen-ta-tives is up for re-election, for a two-year term. There are 435 Representatives, a number set by a law passed in 1911. These seats are allocated to the states as follows: each state is allocated one Representative, and the remaining 385 are attributed to states in propor-tion to their population, as determined by a national census taken every ten years, including in 2020. When a census falls on an election year, as is the case for 2020, the results of the census are not taken into account for that year's election, but only beginning in the following one (in 2022). Any change in a state's numbers of Representatives also changes that state's Electoral College Votes, which as we have seen in earlier chap-ters are equal to the sum of the number of Representatives and Senators representing that state in Congress. In the current House of Representatives, 7 states have only one Representative. 

The national Census establishes how many Representatives each state will have, but in the U.S. Constitution, the states have considerable latitude in determining how to elect its Representatives. Historically, states did not take advantage of this freedom to explore different elections systems: all the states selected single-seat, plurality elec-tions, and for states having more than one Representative, they divided the state into distinct geographical electoral districts, each district to elect a single Representative, with districts subject to modification after every census through a process called Redistrict-ing. Although states have the legal obligation to draw districts that are equal in population "as nearly as is practicable" the states have wide latitude in Redistricting. Who does the Redistricting? In 37 states, the state legislature controls Redistricting, with the Governor typically having veto rights, whereas the remaining states use various commissions to redraw the Districts. 

It is clear that Redistricting is an important process in the US electoral system, as it can have a considerable influence on election outcomes, particularly if it is subject to gerrymandering, the practice of arranging electoral districts in a manner that gives an unfair advantage to one party. The term comes from Elbridge Gerry, who as Governor of Massachusetts in 1812 created a partisan district that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander, as per the picture below. Gerrymandering is interesting because of the "winner take all" plurality election system - the leading party can arrange electoral bounda-ries to "pack" voters of the opposing party into one district, leaving them under-represented in other dis-tricts, or the opposite tactic, to "crack" opposing party voters by arranging districts that spread out opposing party voters over many districts where they will always be in the minority.

Both US Parties have used gerrymandering, but in recent times the Republican Party was particularly successful in Redistricting to its advantage, particularly after the 2010 census, the results of which applied to elections from 2012 to 2020. One analysis by a non-partisan NGO has stated that in the 2016 House of Representatives election, "Of the 38 states with at least three districts, 20 unfairly favor Republicans, 10 unfairly favor Democrats, and only eight have no significant skew in favor of either party."[2]

Caricature of the first Gerrymandered District in 1812

“The Gerry-mander,” political cartoon by Elkanah Tisdale, Boston Gazette, 1812. ? North Wind Picture Archives

Gerrymandering has reduced the number of competitive House Districts across the country and has been blamed for Congressional gridlock, so many advocates of a fairer election system in the US had hoped that the Supreme Court would outlaw the practice, but in 2019, the conservatively tilted Supreme Court ruled that federal courts cannot intervene in partisan gerrymandering, permitting the practice to continue unabated. This decision is likely to add to the number of states gerrymandering their districts after the 2020 census, particularly among states that have a Trifecta State Government, where one party controls the Governorship, a majority in the State Senate and in the State House. As of this writing, there are 36 Trifectas, 21 Republican and 15 Demo-cra-tic states, including Republican Trifecta Swing States Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio, and Democratic Trifecta Swing States Colorado, Maine, Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia.

E. Current House of Representatives, Historical Patterns: The current House of Representatives is controlled by the Democrats, with 233 seats as compared to Repub-licans' 197 seats, 1 Libertarian usually caucusing with the Republicans and 4 vacancies, with 2 vacancies having been Republican and 2 Democratic, so we may consider the House Democrat/Republican balance as 235/200. Republicans will need to gain a net of 18 seats to win back control of the House of Representatives.

Typically, when a president wins election for the first time, the Party of the winner will gain seats in the House. This was not the case when Trump won the 2016 presidential election, the Republican Party lost a net of six seats, but they nevertheless retained the strong majority they had won in the mid-term election of 2014. In mid-term elections when there is no presidential election, the party of the president in power almost always loses seats in the House. Between 1918 and 2018, 15 out of 17 Presidents saw their Party lose seats in the mid-term election, as was the case in 2014 during Obama's second term when the Republicans solidified their House majority, and as was also the case in 2018 when the Republicans lost their House majority to the Democrats in the mid-term election of Trump's presidency, when 46 seats changed Party and the Democrats gained a net total of 40 seats.

What tends to happen when a president seeks reelection, as is the case for Trump in 2020? As would be expected, if the President wins reelection, that Party typically gains House seats (in 11 out of 15 elections since 1920), whereas if a President is not reelected, the President's Party loses House seats (in 3 out of 4 cases since 1920).

The most significant pattern in House elections is that incumbents almost always win reelection, a surprising 93% from 1964 to 2018 (as compared to Senators, 82%). 

What can we say about 2020? One source considers that 74 of the 435 House seats, or 17%, may be viewed as battleground[3], including 42 Democratic incumbents, 30 Republican incumbents and 2 vacant seats. However, current forecasts are that very few House seats will change hands between the Parties, and barring an unexpected landslide win by Trump in the Presidential election, the Democratic Party is very likely to maintain its majority.

F. Why are House Elections Non-Competitive? As House elections occur every two years, one might guess there would be a high level of turnover, but quite the opposite is the case. House elections have become less and less competitive since the early 19th Century and even more so in the recent past, following the trend of the growing partisan divide in the U.S. electorate described in earlier chapters. As noted above, 93% of incumbent House Representatives have won reelection since 1964. How can that be? Congres-sional approval ratings have for years been extremely negative, typically 60% unfavorable and only 20% favorable, and polls consistently show that people believe their congressional representatives have not performed well for them, so how can voters continue to send back to Congress Repre-sen-tatives they say they are so unhappy with? 

We can single out the following reasons: 

i) Single-seat plurality elections, resulting generally in only one serious challenger who usually represents a Party that is in the minority in the district;

ii) Redistricting favorable to one Party;

iii) Negative partisanship in much of the country, meaning that even if a Congress-person may not be popular, the opposing Party candidate is considered worse; and 

iv) Perhaps most significant, the enormous advantages of being an incumbent, which has been estimated to represent 7%-10% of the votes, and may be explained by:

1.             A 2-year term is very short, House members never stop campaigning from the day they are elected, so they have an enormous time and operating advantage over their opponent, who is generally selected just a few months before the election;

2.             Incumbents have immediate and broad name recognition in their district, and they can be identified with projects or federal funding they have gotten for their district;

3.             Incumbents almost always represent the majority Party in the district, and have a lot of power in the state party. This means they can virtually always assure their selection to continue as their Party's candidate, will benefit from partisan distortion in Redistricting (we have noted above that about 30 states have districts that unfairly favors one Party) and they will take advantage of Negative partisanship; 

4.             It takes on average of about $2 million to win an average House election, and much more in the rare contested districts. Incumbents can more easily raise money to finance their campaign from the state and national Party and with their own high-visibility direct solicitation of campaign funds from powerful people as well as the general public in their district;

5.             As corporate and other donors have a strong incentive to give money to candi-dates who are going to win, there is built into the system a self-fulfilling prophesy: the more a candidate is expected to win, the more money will go to that candidate, in turn increas--ing the probability of winning. And since in the past incumbents have won so overwhelmingly, the process is self-reinforcing; and

6.             It is in the interest of the two dominant Parties to retain their dominance, and insur-ing that only the two candidatesrepresenting the Republican and Democratic Parties participate in House elections is coherence with the fundamental objective of the two Parties to maintain control over the entire U.S. electoral process, adding further security to the position of incumbents.

G. Electoral Bias in the U.S. System: A truly democratic voting system would result in "one person, one vote" for all elections in the U.S., but just as with Presidential elections, the U.S. system results in a structural bias that makes the election of the members of the House of Representatives much less than perfectly democratic, due to a number of causes:

1.             Single-Member Districts, combined with single ballot "winner take all" plurality elections. We have seen that single ballot plurality elections were developed in the rivalry among states in the early creation of the United States and even though it is not mandated in the U.S. Constitution, this practice has since become generalized in virtually all of the country's elections; it was made obligatory by a federal law passed in 1967. As a result of these two significant electoral practices, a vote cast for a losing candidate is not reflected in the results, and votes cast for the victorious candidate beyond the thres-hold for victory are in a sense also not counted, or "wasted", resulting in House elections that often do not reflect the electoral opinion of the population of the state. It happens that with the application of these electoral practices, the natural distribu-tion of voters in the U.S. currently provides a significant advantage to the Republican Party, with its electors spread among rural and less populated urban areas as com-pared to many Democratic voters concentrated in larger urban centers. Various estimates suggest that this struc-tural imbalance means Democrats have to win 5%-7% more votes than Republicans to have a 50-50 chance to win a majority in the House of Representatives. Given the evolution of where Americans are moving to, it is likely that this structural imbalance will grow in the coming years.

2.             As we have seen, gerrymandering, or Redistricting to give an advantage to one party has been used by both Parties, but more so the Republican Party in the current ten-year cycle since the census of 2010, when they controlled more state gover-nor-ships and congresses than the Democratic Party. It is estimated that Redistricting since the 2010 census has favored Republicans in 20 states, as opposed to Demo-crats in 10 states, but the game will change after the 2020 census, especially in the 36 states with Trifectas Party control, 21 Republican and 15 Demo-cra-tic. 

3.             The allocation of a fixed number of 425 House seats, with each state being allocated one Representative and the remainder allocated according to population measured every ten years means that for example a registered voter in a state such as Montana that has only one Representative has about half of the electoral weight as a registered voter in Rhode Island, with a population only marginally greater than Montana but with two Representatives in the House.

4.             We should remember that these biases may be balanced by the enormous incumbent advantage described above, which in the 2020 election for the House of Representatives, favors the current Democratic majority. And in view of the impact of Straight Ticket voting, we should also remember that perhaps the most important variable will be who wins the presidential election.

H. House of Representatives Electing the President in the Event of a Tie in the Electoral College: There are a total of 538 Electoral College votes, which means it is conceivable that the 2020 Presidential election ends in a tie, 269 Electoral College votes for each candidate. I covered this subject in Chapter 3, with the following text:

In such a case, the newly elected House of Representatives will decide the Presidential election, but the decision will not follow normal procedures. For example, in the current 116th House of Representatives, there is a majority in favor of the Democrats, by 233 to 197, and as all normal matters are decided by one vote per Repre-sen-ta-tive, the Democratic majority controls the outcome. But in the unique case of the House deciding a presidential election, each state delegation gets a single vote, meaning that in such a vote, the single Representa-tive in the House of Representa-tives from Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont or Wyoming, each of them has the same weight as all 53 Representatives from Califor-nia. It also means that the usual majority of the House of Representa-tives may be irrelevant. Although in the current House the Democrats have the majority of total members, in fact in 26 states, there are more Republican Representatives than Democrats, with the Democrats holding the majority in only 22 states (Michigan and Pennsylvania have an equal number of Representatives from each party), which means that had the Presidential election been decided by the current House of Representa-tives, the current House would have elected the Republican candidate. It is highly probable that the new House of Representatives elected in 2020 would give the same result of a Republican winner, if ever there were a tie in the Electoral College presidential election in 2020.

I. Other Elections: The U.S. political system is complex, with multiple government levels, and elections operating at every level. In this Chapter 6 we have examined Federal legislative elections, but voters on election day will have a ballot which also includes numerous candidates for positions at the level of the states, of their county and their town or city. Just as with the Federal Government, State Govern-ments include executive, legislative and judicial branches, all of which include elected officials.

1. State Executive Branch - All 50 states have a Governor, 45 states have a Lieuten-ant Governor, which may be elected on a joint ticket or separately and most states elect an Attorney General, a Secretary of State and other executive officials. To reduce costs, most (but not all) states combine their election with federal elections. To site an example, in Texas, a statewide election ballot will include the following officials:

            - Governor

            - Lieutenant Governor

            - Attorney General

            - Comptroller of Public Accounts

            - Commissioner of Public Accounts

            - Commissioner of Agriculture

            - Commissioner, Railroad Commission of Texas (3 Commissioners)

2. State Legislative Branch - All the states except Nebraska have a bicameral legislature, composed of two chambers (Nebraska has only one), although depending on the state, the legislature may be called the Legislature, the General Assembly, the General Court or the Legislative Assembly. The smaller chamber is called the Senate or Upper House and its members usually serve for a longer term than the members of the Lower House, generally (but not always) called the House of Representatives. At the same time as the Federal Election, voters are asked to vote for a member of their State Senate and the State House of Representatives representing their district.

3. State Judicial Branch - In the U.S. Constitution, power is shared between the federal government and the state governments, and each has its own distinct judicial system. In the Federal Court System comprised of one Supreme Court, 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals and 94 U.S. District Courts (plus the U.S. Court of Claims, Court of International Trade and Bankruptcy Courts), judges are appointed by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. 

Each State has its own Constitution, its own set of laws, and its own courts, usually operating at three levels, like the federal system. There is usually one State Supreme Court, there may be a Court of Appeals, and there are State Circuit or District Courts (In addition, there may be County Courts dealing with local issues, under state laws). How are state court judges selected? Typically they are elected, some are selected through a merit process (and later subject to reelection) some are appointed for a limited period, some are appointed for life. Since the 19th Century, with the objective of protecting judicial independence, a greater portion of state judges in America are elected, so the ballot of a typical U.S. voter on November 3, 2020 will also include several candidates judges. The election may be competitive, or in certain cases the voter will only be asked to "retain" an incumbent judge, by answering "yes" or "no" in what is called a judicial retention vote. For example, to continue with the above example, an elector in Texas will be asked to vote for the following judicial officials:

            - Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Texas

            - Justice, Supreme Court of Texas (8 Justices)

            - Presiding Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals

            - Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals (8 Judges)

4. Local Government - Counties: Every state is separated into a number of geographical and administrative districts called Counties (except Louisiana where they are called parishes and Alaska, boroughs) - there are in all over 3,000 such Counties (averaging more than 60 per state), each with its own government. A typical county election, often on the same ballot as a national election, might include some of:

• County Executive/Administrator
• Member of Country Council (up to 20), or
• County Commissioners (from 4 to 21 Commissioners) 
• County Attorney
• District Attorney
• County Clerk
• District Clerk
• County Treasurer
• Sheriff
• Tax Assessor-Collector
• Justice of the Peace
• Chief of Police
• County Auditor

5. Local Government - Municipality: Within the county, there will typically be a number of towns or cities, which will also have elected officials, including a Mayor, City Council or City Commis-sioners, a Treasurer, etc. A recent count included more than 36,000 municipal and township governments in the U.S., each with its elected mayor and administrative structure.

6. Referendums: National elections also allow citizens as well as local governments to take initiatives to present "Propositions" or "Ballot Measures", which will be subject to a vote and which may deal with any state, county or local issue, typically requiring a majority to approve such initiatives.

As we can see, voters on November 3, 2020 will be asked on their ballots to vote for a large number of candidates for a large number of offices, at the Federal, State and Local level, typically with a Democratic and Republican candidate for many, if not all, of the positions.

[1] DISCLAIMER: I have sought in this series to explain the US political scene in a non-partisan manner. Any opinions expressed herein are solely my own and do not in any manner reflect the position of the American Club of Lisbon or any other organization with which I may be associated.

[2] From FairVote's Monopoly Politics: "House elections are broken"

[3] From BallotPedia.org