Election Results

2004 Presidential Election

2004 Presidential Election

There were many important issues during the 2004 presidential election. In fact, domestic policy was a hot issue, as result of the terrorist attacks on this country in 2001. President George W. Bush was running against John Kerry.

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was seen as necessary by many Americans. The war on terrorism was still important to most Americans, but especially by those that had been effected by the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The nation wanted to hold someone accountable for the attacks. The war on terrorism helped to bolster Bushes popularity, although there were also many Americans against the war.

The 2004 election map seemed to show which states would vote for each particular candidate. In fact, many thought the results would be clear cut, with Bush winning by a landslide. On the 2004 election map, Ohio was important and Bush won the state, although Kerry had the option to dispute those facts, but he chose not to. That choice has stumped many people, as the outcome in Ohio could have changed the results of the election.

To this day controversy surrounds the voting process in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election, as well as in other states. There were also errors in which the vice presidential candidate received an electoral vote, rather than the Presidential candidate, taking one electoral vote away form Kerry. Despite the controversy, President Bush won the election.

 

Election Results 2008

Election Results 2008

In 2008, former president George W. Bush was leaving the White house and American citizens were looking for someone that had different policies ,which included an appropriate response to the economic crisis, which was just beginning.
Some of the major campaign issues of the year included the economy, including  promises of tax reductions and the creation of jobs. In addition, many of the candidates promised reform and many candidates focused on health care reform. However, each candidate had different ideas about how the current system should be changed.
The final two presidential candidates were Barack Obama and John McCain. In both cases, the major focus of the election campaign was on which candidate would be able to change the country for the better.
The 20008 election results indicated that Barack Obama won the election by one hundred and ninety two electoral votes. The Presidential election of 2008 was historic for several reasons. It was the first time that an African American had been elected as president of the United States. It was also the first time that a woman was nominated for Vice President by the Republican party.
The 2008 election results were also historical because it was the first time in United States history that two senators ran against each other. The Presidential election of 2008 was also the first time in almost six decades, that an incumbent did not run for the Presidency.
 

Election Results 2009

Election Results 2009

The election results in many locations across the United States indicated that Americans were still looking for change. In fact some of the country was experiencing more difficulties as a result of the poor economy. The election 2009 results in other parts of the country however, indicated that voters had faith in those already in office and believed that they could continue to enact changes that would better the economy.
There were some key races won by Democrats, including Bill Owens for the New York Congressional District 23. The election 2009 results also included a win for Jon Garamedni, a democrat, for the California Congressional District 10. 
The election results 2009 also included some important wins for Republicans, including Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. In New Jersey, Chris Christie defeated the Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine, as New Jersey looked for lowered property taxes and improvements for the local economy.
There were several  important referendums voted on in several states. In Maine for example, the Medical Marijuana Law was expanded and the Gay Marriage Law was repealed. In Ohio, a state which had a very poor economy, casinos were approved.
There were also several important wins for independent candidates, such as incumbent Michale Bloomberg who defeated Bill Thompson for the position of New York Mayor. Although  many Americans were looking for change, some election 2009 results indicated that they were comfortable with those already in office and believed that they were capable of making the necessary changes.
 

Election of 1864

Election of 1864

The election of 1864 came as the Civil war continued. President Lincoln ran against the former Civil War General, George McClellan. The American Presidential election was filled with controversy about the Civil war and McClellan was known as the peace candidate. In contrast, Lincoln became President as the Civil War began.

The country was divided and many still believed in what Lincoln was fighting for. Lincoln did not want slavery to expand across the United States and he did not want a divided country. The divisions between ideas included conflicts between family members. In fact, family members were sometimes split and fighting on different sides during the war. In fact, a new political party emerged during the conflict. The National Union party was formed by war democrats.

As the Civil war raged,the American Presidential election excluded those states that were considered Confederate States. President Lincoln won the Election of 1864 by more than four hundred thousand popular votes. It was the first time that a President was re-elected since 1832. The country's faith in Lincoln was strong and many believed that he could bring about the desired change.

This American Presidential election was the fist time in which serving soldiers were able to cast ballots. In fact, the army gave Lincoln over seventy percent of their votes. Less than two months after Lincoln's inauguration, he was assassinated.

 

 

What You Need to Know About The 2000 Presidential Election

What You Need to Know About The 2000 Presidential Election

The election of 2000 between George W. Bush and Al Gore remains one of the most recent examples of a contended and unclear election to have cropped up. In the election, Al Gore theoretically won the popular vote, while George W. Bush won the presidency with 271 electoral votes, one more than was needed for an absolute majority, and five more than Al Gore won. The real dispute surrounding the election erupted from determining where Florida’s 25 electoral votes would go, as the disposition of those 25 votes would determine the results of Bush vs. Gore. 
Before Florida’s electoral votes had been tallied, the popular vote was already in Gore’s favor, and so was the electoral vote at that point. Bush vs. Gore was already a clearly close race, not least because neither candidate had the necessary 270 votes for an absolute majority. New Mexico and Oregon, the last two states to be declared in the Bush vs. Gore contest before Florida, were both declared in favor of Gore, boosting Gore up to 266 votes. But the 25 votes of Florida were all that mattered to the race as a whole, as those 25 votes would determine the winner of the election.
The popular vote in Florida was incredibly close, and the counting of Florida’s votes was characterized by a consistent swinging back and forth between the two poles of the Bush vs. Gore race. At points it looked as if Gore had won the race, only for more votes for Bush to be counted; at other times, it looked as if Bush vs. Gore had tipped in favor of Bush.
This was towards the end of the counting process, and Gore actually conceded to Bush. But the popular vote in Florida was not over yet, and the remaining counties that had not had their votes tabulated were all strongly Democratic. The disparity of votes between Gore and Bush shrank to about 300 votes in Florida, and then 900 votes with the addition of overseas military votes, in favor of Bush. This was after a state law mandated recount by machine because the popular vote in the state had been so close.
But Gore was not willing to let the Bush vs. Gore race end without a fight, not when it was clearly so close. He continually made requests that the popular vote of Florida be recounted, by hand, in four specific counties. The Florida Supreme Court had to make a decision on whether or not it would extend the deadlines to allow for a manual recount, even though Florida law clearly stipulated the deadlines for the counting of the popular vote. 
As every Florida county raced to finish its recount, Palm Beach County unfortunately fell behind. When the deadline arrive, it had not finished, and its partial recount results were therefore rejected. The Bush vs. Gore election looked to be going to Bush.
But Gore did not want to let the election go to Bush, not when the popular vote of Palm Beach County had not been counted. Through a wide variety of court proceedings, Gore attempted to have the ballots recounted by December 12th, when electors had to be selected. Eventually, the Bush vs. Gore fight officially fell in favor of Bush, when Judge N. Sander Sauls ruled that Gore’s requests for a recount would not amount to any change in the election results, and would simply be a waste of time.
There was still more debate to go on, as there had been some accusations of wrongdoing on the part of Republican election; these election workers were accused of changing the results of the popular vote by illegally altering the absentee ballots sent in for those counties, and even of removing applications for absentee ballots from the local offices. These motions all failed, however.
Additionally, Gore had appealed the decision of Judge Sauls to the Florida Supreme Court, which, with only 4 days left, ordered the recount be conducted, but the United States Supreme Court put a hold on the recount, and later decided that Gore could not receive a recount in his attempts to remedy the election problems. As such, the Bush vs. Gore race officially went to Bush, when Gore conceded on December 13th.
The election of 2000 stands out as one of the most problematic elections in American history, not least because of the dilemma of how to deal with a recount. Even today, many do still feel that the popular vote should have impacted more on the overall election process, as Gore did win the popular vote, even as he lost the electoral vote. Many also believe there was much wrongdoing on the part of Republicans who adjusted the votes, even though such accusations have never been proven.
Indeed, those who did go back over the votes eventually found that no recount would have given Gore the votes he would’ve needed to win the Bush vs. Gore contest. But the election shows many of the problems in the electoral college system, and thankfully, the occurrence of the 2000 election allowed lawmakers to prepare for the eventuality that a similar situation should crop up again. 
 

Election Results Explained

Election Results Explained

Because the electoral college system of America focuses on absolute majority and not plurality, it is possible for no candidate to win enough of the electoral vote to actually be declared President based purely on that election. In modern day America, there are 538 votes total in the electoral college system, and the majority of the electoral vote would require a given candidate to win 270 votes.
This number has, of course, fluctuated over the years, as the electoral vote would vary depending on the number of votes afforded to each state. Every state gets a number of votes in the electoral college system equal to the number of Representatives and Senators of that state.
As Representatives vary by state depending upon population, then the total number of votes in the electoral vote may vary from election to election, and in the years prior to America’s acceptance of the full 50 states, the number of votes necessary to win an absolute majority in the electoral college system was certainly lower. Regardless, however, it was always possible for no single candidate to win enough votes to earn an absolute majority in the electoral vote.
Primarily, the reason for this is because of the possibility of multiple parties and candidates. If each election only had two candidates, fully and in actuality, then all votes would be split between those two candidates. There might still be problems if not enough voters turned, out, theoretically, but this would affect the popular vote, and not the electoral vote, and as such, likely would not affect a candidate’s potential to earn an absolute majority in the electoral college system.
If a third candidate is introduced, however, then that candidate could very easily draw away some votes from the other two. If that candidate draws away just enough votes, then it is possible that neither of the other two candidates would be able to earn enough votes to obtain an absolute majority.
If there is a fourth candidate, then this situation only becomes more possible. Nowadays, it is unlikely for a third party to draw away enough of the electoral vote from the two primary parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, and their candidates, to actually prevent one of those candidates from winning the presidential election. But in years past, this was certainly a possibility under the electoral college system, and it actually happened on two different occasions.
The original writers of the Constitution did foresee such a potential outcome, and provided for a way to solve it. In the event that no candidate has earned an absolute majority in the electoral vote, then the House of Representatives would hold a vote to determine the winner of the presidential election.
This might lead to some odd circumstances, in which the results of the electoral college system might be disregarded, insofar as the actual vote of the House of Representatives is concerned. While the House can only vote on the top three candidates from the electoral vote, meaning those three candidates who earned the most electoral votes, the House might still decide on a different President-elect than the candidate who earned the plurality of the electoral vote.
The system already allowed for a different candidate than the one who earned the majority of the popular vote to win the presidency, but through the possibility of this outcome, it is even possible for the electoral vote to have a minimal effect on the overall outcome of the election.
This system was refined after the election of 1800, with the introduction of the Twelfth Amendment, so as to avoid certain complications, and as such, the procedure for dealing with an absence of an absolute majority from the electoral vote is fairly clear. The procedure is not necessarily perfectly fair, but it is certainly functional, and its use in the election of 1824 shows that.
 

Election of 1796

Election of 1796

The presidential election of 1800, the fourth presidential election in United States’ history, was one of the first to show the flaws of the US electoral college system. The election was between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and as such was something of a redux of the presidential election of 1796, which had been decided in John Adams’s favor.
But according to the US electoral college system of the time, in the 1796 election, Thomas Jefferson had become vice president. This was because the US electoral college system at the time involved electors voting for only Presidential candidates, but still receiving two votes.  The candidate with absolute majority would become President, and the candidate with the next highest amount of electoral votes would become Vice President.
Thus, the 1796 presidential election had resulted in a President and a Vice President who were political opponents from two different parties. This problem of determining the President and Vice President through the US electoral college would characterize the presidential election of 1800.
Though John Adams was soundly defeated, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr actually received the same number of votes in the US electoral college. This meant that neither could be definitively called as the victor. Under Article 2 of the Constitution, the House of Representatives would cast a vote to decide the election if there was a tie in the voting of the US electoral college. This meant that the House of Representatives now had the power to determine who was President, which changed the race significantly.
The political parties involved in the presidential election of 1800 were the Federalists, of whom John Adams was a major representative, and the Democratic-Republicans. Both Jefferson and Burr belonged to the Democratic-Republicans.
Though elections ahd been held to change Representatives and Senators in Congress, the lame duck Congress at the time of the presidential election was primarily Federalist. As such, the party which was opposed to both of the potential candidates would get to decide which of those two candidates won the presidential election, thanks to the tie in the US electoral college. Most of the Federalists would have preferred to vote for Aaron Burr, as Thomas Jefferson had been the opponent of the Federalist party since that party’s inception.
This was especially strange, given that the Democratic-Republicans had clearly intended for Jefferson to be the presidential candidate, while should have been the vice-presidential candidate. Thanks to the US electoral college system of the time, however, there was no functional difference, and the Federalists could choose the so-called vice-presidential candidate over the presidential candidate for the winner of the presidential election.
Burr might have thus become the President of the United States, if it hadn’t been for Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, a major leader in the Federalist Party, used his significant influence to push for Jefferson’s election over Burr.
Hamilton believed that it was better for Jefferson to win the presidential election because Jefferson was simply wrong, but was honest, while Burr was a dangerous liar. As a result, Jefferson just barely garnered more votes from the House of Representatives than did Burr, and Jefferson won the election, with Burr becoming his Vice-President.
 
This election’s primary effect upon America was the creation of the Twelfth Amendment, which reworked the US electoral college. The Twelfth Amendment was only passed in 1804, but it importantly altered the US electoral college to allow electors to vote for both a President and a Vice-President in a presidential election, instead of voting for two different presidential candidates, or the same presidential candidate twice.
The Twelfth Amendment established further systems to help prevent any problems as occurred in this election, but the key point was that the ticket system of presidential elections, in which a President and Vice-President would run for office together, became the system of America thanks to the confusion of the election of 1800.