Elections In The States
There are two kinds of elections in the United States. There is the primary election and the general election. The primary elections are usually in the spring or summer, and the general elections are usually in November. The primary election is where you vote for the person who is going to be the candidate for a particular political party. In the United States there are two major political parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The general election is where it is decided who will win the particular office. The offices are positions in the government, like the president, the vice president, and the governor. When you win an office you take office, and start your job as an elected person in that period you are elected for.
The national government is divided in three parts where the presidency has the highest position. The president is elected every fourth years, and the next election will be in 2008. A president cannot sit for more than two periods. That is eight years. The current president, George W. Bush, has been president in the last eight years and therefore a new one must be elected in 2008. Under the president there are two government assemblies, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate has 100 members, two senators from each of the fifty states. Every two years there is an election for the Senate, but only one third of the senators are elected each time so that they gets to seat a career of six years each. Then there is the House of Representatives which have 435 members. In this house the states has different numbers of representatives depending on the state’s population. All the members of the House of Representatives are elected for a period of two years.
Only people who are at least 18 years old, and American citizens can vote for the elections. In some states you cannot vote if you have committed a serious crime. You can also vote even though you can’t speak English, because some states...
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