Elections in the United States are held for government officials at the federal, state, and local levels. At the federal level, the nation’s head of state, the president, is elected indirectly by the people of each state. There are many elected offices at state level, each state having at least an elective governor and legislature. At local level, there are elected offices in counties, cities, towns, townships, boroughs, and villages. The eligibility of an individual for voting is set out in the constitution and also regulated at statelevel.
About Elections in the United States in brief
Elections in the United States are held for government officials at the federal, state, and local levels. At the federal level, the nation’s head of state, the president, is elected indirectly by the people of each state, through an Electoral College. There are many elected offices at state level, each state having at least an elective governor and legislature. At local level, there are elected offices in counties, cities, towns, townships, boroughs, and villages. All elections are administered by the individual states. The eligibility of an individual for voting is set out in the constitution and also regulated at statelevel. The number of American adults who are currently or permanently ineligible to vote due to felony convictions is estimated to be 5.3 million. An additional 4.3 million American citizens lack the right to vote in Congressional elections because they reside in Washington D. C., Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories that are not part of any of the 50 U. S. states. All states except North Dakota require that citizens who wish to vote be registered to vote at state offices, but in the mid-1990s efforts were made by the federal government to make registering easier. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 required state governments that receive certain types of federal funding to make the voter registration process easier by providing uniform services through uniform drivers’ license centers, schools, libraries, and mail-in registration. The federal government has also been involved in attempts to increase voter turnout, by measures such as the National Voter registration act of 1993.
In 2016, Maine became the first state to adopt instant-runoff voting statewide for its elections, although due to state constitutional provisions, the system is only used for federal elections and state primaries. The Federal Elections Commission, created in 1975 by an amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act, has the responsibility to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of U. S. presidential elections. The most common method used in U. s. elections is the first-past-the-post system, where the highest-polling candidate wins the election. Under this system, a candidate only requires a plurality of votes to win, rather than an outright majority. Some may use a two-round system,. where if no candidate receives a required number of votes then there is a runoff between the two candidates with the most votes. Voters rank the candidates in order of preference rather than voting for a single candidate. If a candidate secures more than half of votes cast, that candidate wins. Some states also have legacy constitutional statements barring those legally declared incompetent from voting; such references are generally considered obsolete and are being considered for review or removal where they appear. Some states ban convicted criminals, especially felons, from voting for indefinitely. In 2012, there were 519,682 elected officials in theUnited States as of 2012. While the federal has has decided over federal elections, most election laws are decided at the state level.
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This page is based on the article Elections in the United States published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
