Presidential Elections

Presidential Elections

States are responsible for the administration of both their own and federal (including presidential) elections. States do this from a local level with elections being principally funded by more than 10,000 counties, cities, townships, and villages.* In order to become president, a candidate must have 270 electoral votes out of a total of 538. In the 2000 presidential election, Bush received 271 electoral votes. The dispute over his victory developed when he won the Florida electoral votes by a margin of less than half of one percent. After the first of three requested recounts, the tabulation came back in favor of Bush at even less of a margin than before. The difficulty that emerged in the Florida election recount was that each county used different types of ballots (e.g., electronic, push card, etc.) and had a different method of recounting votes. One of the benefits of state-run presidential elections is that it is less expensive than a federally administered presidential election process would be. However, without a national standard, each state can conduct elections in different ways, which can cause inaccuracy and problems as Bush v. Gore illustrates.

*Government Accountability Office. (2001). Perspectives on activities and challenges across the nation. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d023.pdf, p. 3.

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