Electing our Presidents: How do we vote?

welcome to electing our presidents how do we vote my name is elizabeth dengel and i work for the national archives and records administration and i am located at the herbert hoover presidential library museum in west branch iowa the power of the states to hold presidential elections and send electors for the electoral college can be found in article 2 of the constitution the 12th amendment and in u.s code elections began as a clerical process and did not take very long to hold or to count but state legislators began to formalize and regulate elections to ensure there were standards and consistency across the state no two states hold elections the same way and there is even variation within the states even at the state level elections are decentralized and held at the county or city level each state has a chief election official who has ultimate authority in the state the graphic here explains some of the state administrators across the united states there were several reforms in the 1800s to prevent state and party corruption and voting in the 1800s citizens had to register to vote states were required to maintain voter lists the australian or secret ballot was introduced and voting machines found their way into our electoral process there have been a few amendments that changed the process of presidential elections the 12th amendment separated presidential and vice presidential electoral college votes to prevent ties like what happened in the election of 1800 the 20th amendment shortened the lame duck time that means the time between the election and when a president is sworn into office they moved that date from march 4th to january 20th herbert hoover was the last president to be sworn in on march 4th i have borrowed this graphic from black men vote so we can explain the process of the presidential election first in the process states hold primaries and caucuses in this initial step several candidates from the same party run against each other for their party's nomination secondly the parties hold national conventions where the delegates from each state vote for their respective candidate the candidate with the most votes receives the party nomination and they move on to the general election ballot third the country holds the general election where every registered voter can vote for the presidential candidate of their choice so who wins the presidency is it the person with the most votes not so fast several presidents have lost the popular vote but have won the electoral college which is the last stop in our process each state has a set number of electoral votes and the state decides if they are divided amongst the parties or if it is winner takes all most states are winner takes all electors are chosen at the local level conventions and sent to the state capitol to cast their party's vote the results are then certified by their state official and sent to congress the winner of the electoral college is then sworn in as the president of the united states i have a guest speaker to help us understand this all right so today we're with travis weinberg he is a county auditor in johnson county iowa welcome thank you ma'am we're gonna ask him some questions about caucuses and primaries and stuff like that because we're talking about the process for voting so the electoral process begins in iowa no matter how you look at it so why is iowa first in the nation well it goes back to i believe the early 80s when all of a sudden that we just kind of became the first in the nation but what's weird is everybody thinks as an elected official who oversees elections here in iowa that i run the caucuses that's not true those are run by the parties so the democrats and the republicans and even at some times depending on if they meet the threshold the libertarians they all run their own caucuses it's not i mean everybody thinks it's some kind of an election but it's not really an election from the standpoint of the person that runs meaning me elections here in iowa so how is a caucus and a primary different so a primary you go in the here in iowa the republicans have a primary they go in write down who they want to vote for kind of like you're going to the polls drop it and you know their little slot or whatever and they head out the door a caucus is a lot different because you have to count the number of people in the room and then you figure out what the threshold is for somebody to be viable and then you send everybody to their corners as in they get to go you know if i'm for let's just say this election if i'm for biden harris bootage i would go to those corners well if those people aren't viable you have to have i believe it's 15 then you're allowed to do a second go round and move to another corner so it's not like you know you vote once head out the door you can vote a second time if your person isn't viable and so can caucuses and primaries be different in the same state just between different parties so i can the democrats have different process that's exactly how it works here in iowa the republicans have a primary democrats have a caucus so what other states have caucuses in the united states oh i know off the top of my head nevada does uh i believe south carolina um one of the things that keeps iowa first in the nation is the fact that we have a caucus so like new hampshire has a primary if we were if i will work to go to a primary and again this is outside of my realm as auditor i'm talking about now political parties if iowa were no longer to do the caucus primary and go strictly to a primary we would no longer be first because the way politics work works is new hampshire gets to be the first state with a primary where we're the first state with the caucus ah i see so does every registered voter get to participate in caucuses and primaries if they want to yes but you have to show up and be registered for that party that you're there for so you know i you know just guess kind of picking on you if you're a registered republican but if you show up and want a caucus you would have to change your party affiliation that night to democrat now same can be said if you're a registered d and you want to go to the republican primary you would have to switch your party so we get a lot of folks that switch parties same way you cannot be no party on caucus night if you show up to caucus or primary you have to pick rd and re-register and so in other states if there's a primary they can participate but in a closed primary it's the same thing right they have to be registered with a party that's having uh that's having a prime running a primary election that's absolutely correct yep so how do the caucuses and primaries produce delegates that get to go on to poor candidates so you have to be a die hard person of your party laugh because so you have to go to the county level and then get voted on to go to the state level get voted on to go to the national level and i know people that have gone to the state level that really really want to be that national delegate and they're willing to be at the you know state conventional four five six in the morning the next day just to get elected you know it it's all it's just being a part of the party you know they want to make sure that you are who you are that you know you're going to represent the whether it be republican libertarian or democratic party that you're going to represent what they want okay and so like once they get to the national conventions what happens in the national conventions what do they do for the electoral process so that's the point where they get to represent just you know saying the state of iowa they get to say we're giving our votes to and like this case this last year it would have been joe biden or you know whoever state voted for whoever you know has won the nomination they step up and say we're giving our votes for that person and then those people end up on the national ticket and so people get to go vote in the general election after that at that point so what happens once the election is done and you've counted all the ballots i get to go home and go to bed no i mean people don't realize like when you count the ballots it's not just winner take all each state has a certain amount of delegates or votes that are allocated it's called the electoral college to the candidate so like in iowa's case um our electoral votes went for donald trump but over in wisconsin their majority voted for uh joe biden so the electoral votes go to joe biden and you know we saw that with george's probably one at georgia arizona probably two of the biggest swing states that normally their electoral votes were always republican and this go round they happened there you know the citizens in that state voted for the democrat um you know people get so confused you see where like hillary clinton won the popular vote and so joe biden but just winning the popular vote doesn't mean you're going to be the president or you know governor whatever so and so how are electoral voters chosen because they vote at the state level right so who picks them so that comes down to the parties um they're you know kind of chosen through the you know the higher up get you know it's one of those deals where you have to work your way up through the party situation um you know it it's not really you know i'm trying to trying to figure out a way to describe this but it's not like you know so in our case trump won here in iowa so the republican party is going to pick the i believe we have six electoral votes here they'll pick the six people that they know will represent him and vote for him and so when they are chosen and now the general election's over the minorities going to donald trump the republicans send their electors to des moines our capital and then what happens so then they say that they're there for donald trump or joe biden um we do have states and this is where it gets a little tricky um nebraska they um do their elect electoral votes by congressional district so if you go out and look at a map you'll notice that nebraska had i believe two people even though the majority of citizens voted for trump they had two districts that the majority voted for biden so he got those two electoral votes i mean it's i believe maine's the same way we're not that way here in iowa but yeah i mean when you start talking about the whole electoral college it gets crazy so they sign they do their signatures right in front of the governor and then what happens the state who certifies this and sends this to congress at this point so it heads to congress and then congress has to certify each state which we saw unfortunately the insurrection if you want to call it that at the national capital where a few senators didn't want to receive votes from some states which is unfortunate because each state sets its own laws and to me uh the states that they were trying to um you know if you want to call void their votes was ridiculous because they followed the rule of law so so does the secretary of state in each state um sign off on its certification to send it to congress yes along with again then it has to go to the senators and they have to approve it but yes that goes through people need to remember in the united states and this what's kind of funky each state sets its own election laws we don't there's no federal election law so every state is different and how they operate awesome well is there anything else you want students to know about the voting process or what they can do at their state levels just get out and vote it's awesome i mean i know you get out and vote all the time it it it's you know it's one of those deals i remind students all the time even when i'm in high schools you know you may not own a house you may be renting an apartment but when it comes to taxes and stuff if there's a tax increase do you think your rent won't go up you know i mean you know when you when you look at voting for bond issues for school districts that type of stuff you know you think to yourself well i don't own a house it doesn't matter no it matters stuff that's gonna you know 5 10 15 years down the road affect you so get involved be knowledgeable and ask questions kind of you know like you interviewing me tonight just you know i'm always open i get emails all the time phone calls ask questions don't be afraid to you know get out there vote speak your mind so you know i may not agree with you on how you vote but i'll tell you what it's you know you're right and exercise that right yeah well thank you so much for coming on with us

Channel: Reagan Library

Views: 1,282

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Id: QfTT5Z0082w

Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021