Republican, George W. Bush is returning for a second term as President. Bush clinched the victory in the 2004 Presidential Election after winning the 20 electoral votes in Ohio, which gave him a total of 274 electoral college votes. In case you're still confused about how everything works, Kidzworld takes a look at the American electoral system.
US Elections - The Players
Presidential Candidates: Must be at least 35 years old, born in the USA and have lived in the USA for 14 years.Political Parties: Groups of people who have similar ideas about how the country should be run, who put forward candidates in political elections.
Voters: must be 18 years old, a US citizen and meet the residency requirements for his or her state.
US Elections - Popular Vote
Political parties elect a person to run as their presidential candidate through primaries and caucuses, in which party members vote for their fave candidate. Independent candidates (those without party affiliations) simply register themselves as presidential candidates. All the candidates are put forward to the American public and voters choose their favorite. Here's where is gets tricky though. Even though voters check off the name of the person they would like to see become President, they are actually voting directly for the candidate; that's the job of the Electoral College. Let's take a look at what they do.
US Elections - The Electoral College
In the Electoral College system each state gets a certain number of electors based on the number of representatives it has in congress. California has the most - a whopping 54! Rhode Island gets four. Aww, poor Rhode Island. There are 538 electoral votes all together. Each state then uses these electors (thing of them as multiple votes) to say who their state prefers for President. So if most of the peeps in Rhode Island votes for a dude named Bob Jones, then Rhode Island would get 4 votes for good ol' Bob. The candidate who gets at least 270 electoral votes becomes President. This explain why Al Gore actually got more votes in the 2000 election but George Bush became President - he got more electoral votes. In 2004, George Bush received 51% of the popular vote, while John Kerry received 48%. The new president is always sworn in on January 20th.
Election 2004 - The Candidates
The two main political parties in the United States are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Here's a brief glance at their candidates for President in the 2004 Election:Republican - George Bush: He's the 43rd President, who's been re-elected for a second term in office. You're only allowed to be president for two terms, so this will be his final term. He campaigned mostly on the issue of national security and the War on Terror.
Democrat - John Kerry: This Massachusetts senator fought in the Vietnam War and campaigned to protect America from "foreign threats and greedy special interests."
So, what do you think? and tell us what you think about the 2004 election. Were you happy about who won? Who would you have voted for if you could vote.
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