ELECTION 2012

2012 ELECTION MAPS FOR SENATE, HOUSE AND GOVERNOR RACES:

• politico.com/2012-election/map/#/President/2012/Primary/
• realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/senate/2012_elections_senate_map.html
• realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/house/2012_elections_house_map.html

CANDIDATES and ISSUES:

• View your Congressional candidates at C-SPAN.org (Scroll down to view your state’s race.)
• See links for all 50 states’ Election Board websites at the bottom of this page.

SENATORS:

• Elections to the United States Senate are to be held on November 6, 2012, with 33 of the 100 seats in the Senate being contested in regular elections whose winners will serve six-year terms from January 3, 2013 until January 3, 2019.
• The Senate is currently composed of 51 Democrats, 47 Republicans, and two Independents who caucus with the Democrats (democratic socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut).
• Currently, Democrats are expected to have 23 seats up for election, including the 2 independents who caucus with the Democrats, while Republicans are expected to have 10 seats up for election.

REPRESENTATIVES:

• The 2012 United States House of Representatives elections will be held on November 6, 2012.
• Elections for United States House of Representatives will be held for all 435 seats, representing the 50 U.S. states.
• Elections will also be held for the delegates from the District of Columbia and five major U.S. territories.
• The winners of this election cycle will serve in the 113th United States Congress. This will be the first congressional election using congressional districts apportioned based on the 2010 United States Census.
• The House is currently composed of 242 Republicans and 193 Democrats.

GOVERNORS:

• The United States gubernatorial elections of 2012 will be held in eleven states and two territories
• There are currently 29 Republicans, 20 Democrats, and 1 Independent holding the office of governor in the states, and 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans (one is also a member of the New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico) as governor of United States Territories and mayor of Washington, D.C.

CONSERVATIVE vs. LIBERAL BELIEFS:
Where do you stand on the issues?
Check out StudentNewsDaily’s “Conservative vs. Liberal Beliefs” chart.

ELECTORAL COLLEGE:
The Electoral College consists of the popularly elected representatives (electors) who formally elect the President and Vice President of the United States. Since 1964, there have been 538 electors in each presidential election. Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution specifies how many electors each state is entitled to have and that each state’s legislature decides how its electors are to be chosen. U.S. territories are not represented in the Electoral College. The Electoral College is an example of an indirect election.

Electoral Votes for the presidential election: Each state has a certain number of electoral votes. The more people that live in your state-the more electoral votes your state gets. (Can you see why candidates would spend a lot of time in California, New York, and Texas?) In 48 of the states, the candidate that gets the most votes gets all the electoral votes for that state. Nebraska and Maine do not follow the winner-take-all rule, there could be a split of electoral votes among candidates through a proportional allocation of votes. The first candidate to win 270 electoral votes becomes the President.

• For more on the electoral college visit the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

• Visit the U.S. National Archives page “Frequently Asked Questions“

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES:
Presidential debates: The central focus of a presidential debate should be to provide voters with information they need to measure the suitability of the candidates for the White House.

• Visit the Commission on Presidential Debates library to view
  Presidential Debate History.
• Watch the Presidential Debates or the Vice Presidential Debate at: (to be posted when they take place)

BALLOT MEASURES:
Anything that appears on a ballot other than a candidate running for office is called a ballot measure. As of June 28, 2011, five states, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Jersey and Texas, have measures certified for the 2011 ballot. Ballot measures are broken down into two distinct categories – initiatives (or propositions) and referendums.

• Initiative – Citizens, collecting signatures on a petition, place advisory questions, memorials, statutes (laws) or constitutional amendments on the ballot for the citizens to adopt or reject. “Initiative” refers to newly drafted legislation submitted directly to a popular vote as an alternative to adoption by a state legislature. Twenty-four states have the initiative process.
• Referendum – In many of the same states the citizens have the referendum process – the ability to reject laws or amendments proposed or already passed by the state legislature.

The terms above are all forms of “direct democracy” practiced by various states. In a direct democracy, all citizens, without the intermediary of elected or appointed officials, can participate in making public decisions. Ballot measures are a form of direct democracy practiced by many states in the U.S.

Read more about ballot measures (initiatives and referendums) at the Initiative and Referendum website iandrinstitute.org.

View a map of state ballot measures at iandrinstitute.org/statewide_i%26r.htm.

Does your state practice direct democracy through the ballot measure process? If so, what initiatives or referendums are on the ballot in the upcoming election?

PARTY PLATFORMS:
The National Platform is an official statement of a political party’s position on a wide variety of issues. Each issue category included in the Platform is a “plank.” A new Platform is adopted every four years by both the Democratic and Republican parties.

• Compare the platforms here.
• Read the 2008 Republican Platform at The American Presidency Project website. [2012 Platform to be posted when published.]
• Read the 2008 Democratic Party Platform at The American Presidency Project website. [2012 Platform to be posted when published.]
• View all current and previous party platforms.

FOR EDITORIALS AND INFORMATION ON THE 2012 ELECTIONS:

• realclearpolitics.com/elections
• c-span.org/politics
• politico.com/2012-election

VISIT THE YOUTUBE PAGES FOR THE 2012 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES TO LEARN ABOUT WHERE THEY STAND ON THE ISSUES:

• Newt Gingrich: youtube.com/ngingrich
• Ron Paul: youtube.com/user/ronpaul
• Mitt Romney: youtube.com/user/mittromney

VISIT THE CAMPAIGN WEBSITES FOR THE FRONT-RUNNERS:

• Mitt Romney, Republican challenger:  mittromney.com/issues
• Barack Obama, Democratic incumbent: barackobama.com/record/economy

CLICK ON YOUR STATE FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ELECTIONS WEBSITE BELOW:
(What type of information would you like to see at your state’s elections page? Send an email to your Secretary of State with your suggestion. Identify yourself with your name, school and city. Be clear, concise and polite.)

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
*Washington D.C. – NOTE: Voting rights of citizens in the District of Columbia differ from those of United States citizens in each of the fifty states. District of Columbia residents do not have voting representation in the United States Senate, but D.C. is entitled to three electoral votes for President. In the U.S. House of Representatives, the District is entitled to a delegate, who is not allowed to vote on the floor of the House, but can vote on procedural matters and in House committees. (from wikipedia)