How the hell does the American voting system work?

[Hell Mike]

Crash course please. What are primaries and why is everything so fucking drawn out and stuff? Why not just fucking vote and be done with it? Go through all steps in small words for me, from the thought "Well hey maybe I should run for da P after all" to the official assrape of the world.

 

[Chromatose]

The intricacies are confusing and difficult to explain, but essentially the point of the primaries is to single out the candidate from each party that will run against each other in the main election.


Details: I guess it's something like:

1: Do you want to be president? Yes, see 2; no, give up!
2: Do you have massive amounts of money? Yes, see 3; no, give up!
????
29: Happy Birthday Mr. President

 

[skeptik]

The people who are able to run for president are typically people who were either born in a well-to-do family or raised themselves up via lucrative trades, raised lots of money, and became politically active locally and gradually raised their awareness and name recognition levels. Speaking in terms of the two party system, the two major parties adopt candidates who want to run for president, and these candidates participate in debates and campaign and raise funds to curry favor for themselves, and during the primaries, voters vote for the candidate that they would like to represent either the Democratic or Republican party, and then the Democratic and Republican candidates that receive the most electoral votes in the primaries (the electoral votes correspond to the population size of the states, and the candidate that wins each state gets those electoral votes) run their presidential campaigns against any third party candidate, which is essentially irrelevant. Basically, the primaries decide who is going to represent the two major parties in the presidential campaign later on in the year. And then voters vote again for who they want to be president between those two candidates and all of the other candidates running independently, and whoever gets 270 electoral votes (I think that's the number) is president.

 

[Dead_Lioness]

The intricacies are confusing and difficult to explain, but essentially the point of the primaries is to single out the candidate from each party that will run against each other in the main election.


Details: I guess it's something like:

1: Do you want to be president? Yes, see 2; no, give up!
2: Do you have massive amounts of money? Yes, see 3; no, give up!
????
29: Happy Birthday Mr. President

hahaha that was awesome and strangely enough.... somewhat true...

hmmmm.

 

[EricT]

It works?

 

[Thanatopsis123]

It works?

Ha! Exactly what I thought upon seeing the thread title.

 

[En Vind Av Sorg]

It doesn't.

 

[Chromatose]

Most definitely the case.

 

[Guthrum]

Ha! Exactly what I thought upon seeing the thread title.

Same.

 

[WhiteBeastofWotan]

We vote a couple times, then someone else ends up voting for us.

 

[panzerfaust666]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22997326/

current updates on Primaries

 

[NAD]

The intricacies are confusing and difficult to explain, but essentially the point of the primaries is to single out the candidate from each party that will run against each other in the main election.


Details: I guess it's something like:

1: Do you want to be president? Yes, see 2; no, give up!
2: Do you have massive amounts of money? Yes, see 3; no, give up!
????
29: Happy Birthday Mr. President

Holy living fuck this is the greatest thing ever.

I came in here to add something clevAr, but why bother now?

[/internet]

 

[Hell Mike]

I love this thread.
So, you're currently in the semi finals?