Super Tuesday!
26. Февраль, 2016 в 23:31,
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Every four years, America has what is called "Super Tuesday". This is not related to the Super Bowl, which is the professional championship game in American football. No, it's called a Super Tuesday because it is the most important day for voting for candidates for president for the two major political parties in the U.S.
The American election system is somewhat complicated, but here is a brief explanation. We have two large political parties: the Democrats and the Republicans. Each political party picks its own candidates for president. The process for picking the candidates taxes approximately seven to eight months, beginning in January and ending in July or August of the election year (we have a presidential election every four years in the U.S.).
There are two steps in picking the party's candidate for president.
In Step One, each person who wants to be the candidate for his or her party tries to win delegates from each of the 50 states. These delegates are picked by each state, and each state determines how it will pick its own delegates.
Each state also determines when it will pick its own delegates. For example, people in Iowa decided to have their election for delegates in January. Other States picked different dates in February, March, April, and May (and something as late as June).
This means that each person who wants to be the candidate will travel to these different states and try to win delegates. This also means that if you lose in some of the early states that pick first, you may not be considered a good enough candidate to continue, so it is important to win early and keep winning in the other state elections.
This is one reason why people think this is a crazy system. Both parties usually begin with seven or eight people who wants to be the presidential candidate for their party. But if they don't win some of the early states, they will probably have to drop out because people will think they are not popular enough to win. So there are really three or four states that effectively select the candidates - the states that vote early.
There is no logic as to which states go first. Historically, New Hampshire was always the first state to pick its delegates, but now it is Iowa.
Since each state wants to have an influence on who is the winning candidate , states have an incentive to make their elections earlier and earlier. If you are a state that waits until May or June to have your election for delegates, the race could be finished already, since the winning candidate only needs a majority (51%) to win the nomination as the candidate for his or her party.
In the past several years, states have moved their elections from the later months to the earlier months in order to have a greater say in determining who becomes the candidate.
In the latest presidential election, 24 states held elections to pick delegates on Super Tuesday ! This is the most number for any day of the process, so it is called 'Super' Tuesday (elections in the U.S. are usually held on Tuesdays, not Sundays as in many other countries).
After all the states pick their delegates, we then go to Step two, the national convention.
All the delegates get together in one place and vote for the person they want to be the candidate for their party. This person is called the nominee.
These delegates must vote for the person their state told them to vote for, at least on the first ballot of the convention. If no candidate has a majority on the first ballot, then there will be more ballots until the winner is chosen. After the first vote at the convention, delegates are free to vote for whomever they like.
However, this has not happened in many years. Usually. The winning candidate has enough delegates to win on the first ballot. These national conventions - one for the Democrats, one for the Republicans - are held in different cities every four years.
We're not done yet! I said that each state has its own election on the day that it wants to pick these delegates to the national convention (which is held in July or August).
But there are two kinds of elections that a state can use. The first is called a caucus. A caucus is when people from each neighborhood or area come together at a school or other large building and meet to talk about the election and select delegates to their state political convention. Many states still have caucuses, including Iowa, Minnesota, and a few others.
Most states have the other method of picking delegates, called a primary. A primary is like a normal election, where people go to a place (calling a polling place) and vote for the person they want. There are no meetings, and the ballot is a secret. Big states such as California and New York use a primary system, and both of these states will be selecting their delegates today, on Super Tuesday.
After each party selects its candidates, then there is a general election in November (the first Tuesday in November), held every four years to elect the president . In the general election, the two nominees try to win as many votes as possible, and all 50 states vote at the same time. The winner becomes president.
VOCABULARY
- approximately - примерно
- as to (related to) - относиться к
- ballot - бюллетень
- drop out (quit) - бросать, покидать
- incentive - стимул
- polling - голосование
- race - соревнование
- say - влияние