So welcome back to the studio, James.

Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Hello, everyone.

One of the major things that people are talking about in the United States right now is the upcoming election.

Yes, it's probably the number one talking topic on the news, in people's homes, with colleagues and friends is definitely the presidential election that's coming very soon.

When is it exactly?

This year in 2020, it's on November 3rd, which is a Tuesday.

Does that mean it’'s not always on a specific day or date？

No, it's not always the same day, but it is always a Tuesday. So the US election for president is always the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which sounds very confusing, I know.

The first Tuesday after the first Monday. I get it, so means if the first of the month is a Tuesday, then it will be the second Tuesday.

That is correct. So the first day is a Tuesday, the elections not that day, it'll be the next Tuesday.

And who made these rules and why?

Well, it's the rules in the constitution. And the reason why it's on a Tuesday has to do with the American history about Americans being much more rural. It just happened that Tuesdays were more convenient for these Americans to go vote. They had to do harvest, taking things to market. And Tuesday was just a good day.

Okay. The election is every four years.

The presidential election is every four years. We have smaller elections more often, but this is the big one.

Okay. This episode and also in the advanced episode, we can talk about election. We're not going to talk about political views.

No, not at all.

But just how this system works because it sounds complicated. People explain to me before, but I just find it really complex.

I wouldn't worry too much about that because Americans also find it very complex.

So let's start with the very basic -- how do Americans vote？Let's start with who can vote.

Let's start with the very simple then. The voting age in America is 18. So when you turn 18, you can register to vote.

But you have to be a citizen, right？

Yes, you have to be a US citizen, either a natural born or naturalized.

Naturalize means you were not born in the United States, but you later on immigrated, for example.

Correct.

Naturalize. So 18 years old, US citizen and you must register so you can't just go to the voting place and just say okay, I will vote.

No, you have to register beforehand. Usually a month ahead of time. So they make sure that they have you in the system and to register is really easy. Most places you can just register online now. You can also do it at the DMV Department of Motor Vehicles.

This is where we get our driver's license and a lot of times when we get our driver's license or updating information, we can register at that time as well.

I've heard that you must register in the state you live.

Yeah, we vote based on where our residency is. So I'm from Washington state, so I vote in Washington.

But you don't live in Washington right now. You live in Beijing. How does that work？

I vote what's called absentee.

So you're not there, but will you still considered a resident there in terms of voting.

Yeah, in terms of voting, I'm still a resident of the state of Washington. I receive a ballot.

A ballot就是选票It’s the actual ticket, the paper.

Yeah, the actual paper that has the names and the things we fill out to actually vote. It sent to me by mail. I receive it here in China.

It's always sending it through mail? Can you not do it online, for example?

Well, through my state of Washington, we are allowed to print the ballot online. We can print it out on paper, fill it out, sign it, scan it. I can email it back. But not every state allows this.

I was just gonna ask: so it's not like a national roll for this? It's still state by state?

Correct. So the only thing that the national government states is what day the election is. But the actual voting is a state issue. So each state has different rules.

So this is already making it so much more complex.

It's extremely complex. So some states you can vote by mail. You can vote in person so means actually going to a polling station.

Polling station.

The places that are by mail, you can fill it out and send it or drop it off in a drop box.

I know the actual election is you said November the 3rd this time. But how long a period are people given to cast their votes？

Again, it depends from state to state.

I start to sense like that is the answer for everything in the United States.

Sadly, it is, but in general, it starts about a month beforehand.

So you have a month to cast your vote.

My ballot has already been sent in the mail. So I can actually track it to see when I receive it. Some states have what's called early voting. So people can already go to the polling stations now and cast their vote. Millions of people already have.

How can they be sure that you only vote once because I really like this candidate. Can I just send 10 votes for him?

That is election fraud. You will go to jail for that.

Okay, so that is actually. It's against the law first of all, how would they find out?

In person voting you have to sign in when you get to the polling station then give you one ballot. You fill it in, drop it off.

But you just said that in your state you can print out and then …

Correct, so in mainland the mailing ballot is registered to the voter. So each ballot actually has identification to the voter. So the ballot is tied to a person. So even if you receive two, only one of them will be valid. If you send in both, they probably throw both of them out.

Because you have already committed fraud.

Correct. So like I will print mine online. As soon as I print mine, the one that's being mailed to me will get cancelled. It'll be just unusable. I will destroy it once I receive it.

And you cannot act as a proxy, can you vote on someone's behalf？

No, that is very much not allowed. So people with disabilities can have people help them vote, but you cannot vote for them.

But you cannot sign like a declaration and say, James, could you vote for me？

No, that is not allowed in the United States.

I see. Now comes to the difficult part. How is the president actually chosen？I know there are two stages. First you have something called primary.

Yes. There are two stages to the election. The primary stage is the stage where the political parties are choosing their candidates. So there will be smaller elections in each state where you're only voting for who you want to represent the party. So in general, and a primary election, you'll either receive a ballot based on which party you want. So if you want to vote democrat, you'll receive the democrat ballot. You want to vote republican. You receive the republican ballot. Or my state, you just get one ballot and you just choose one person.

You choose the person and not the party. At this stage during the primary, can anyone run, technically?

Yeah, as long as you meet the requirements and you fill out the proper paperwork, yeah. During the primary there are actually something like there can be up to 30 candidates.

Wow, because sometimes you see some of these candidates and you think there's no way he's gonna win the election. I mean, the final election, the general election. But they're still running for whatever reason they're still running.

For some of them, they know they're not going to win. They're doing it to maybe raise their …

Political profile?

Right, raise a profile. Maybe they have an issue they want on the forefront of people's minds. So that would be one way to do it. Even if you are just for a month running for president, you'll be in the media more.

And that starts in the beginning of the year.

Right, so in 2020 primary season started around February March. It goes until summer. So there'll be different elections throughout the months and different states. Over 50 primaries, each state has one, Washington DC has one. And also some of the territories like Puerto Rico, they have one as well. In summer they'll be the national conventions, the democrat and the republican.

And that's when they officially announce who is their final candidate.

Yes, but most Americans know who the candidate will be before the conventions because it's pretty obvious based on the account. But they do need to officially announce it.

And during the primary is whoever gets the highest vote.

Yeah, whoever gets the party nomination.

Okay, and then say they have announced it. And this year obviously they announced Biden and Trump. It goes into the general elections. They work as a team, right？Like president and vice president. It's you choose a pair. You don't get to hand pick another vice president.

Yeah, we call it a ticket. So the president, vice president ticket, so you vote for them as a pair, not separate.

Is that actually on the ballot？

Yeah, it is. So on the ballot, it will say like Donald Trump, Mike Pence or Biden and Harris. We are voting for the pair.

I see and so it goes into general elections. One thing I often hear in certain elections, in certain situations, they would lose the popular vote but when the election. For example, Trump case in point.

And George Bush.

How does that work？Because in my basic understanding in voting, it's basically like this country has 10 people, for example. And then six people voted for candidate A then it should be candidate A, shouldn't it？How can you lose popular vote and ended up winning the election.

Okay, because we have a system called the electoral college, which presidents are not directly elected. They are elected based on votes that each state has based on the state's population.

Ok. So let's slow down. This is a very complex system that this is what makes American election really complicated. You said it's based on states, so basically that means each state will have a number of votes. Based on population?

Based on population. So California, Texas, Florida, New York have the most votes, I say the most popular states and states like Alaska, Wyoming, they only have three votes because they have very small populations.

And you mentioned California, one of the most densely populated in the United States. How many votes how many electoral college votes do they get？

I think right now they're 55.

55 compared to Wyoming three. I'm sure then that means every candidate would fight for California because it's more important. It's so much bigger.

Not necessarily, because there are some states that always lean to one party more than the other. California is one that always leans democrat. Republican candidates tend not to spend too much time in California.

Because they're not going to win.

They're not going to win it, so they'll focus on other states. They are more likely to win.

Is that why they call some states blue states, some states red states.

Correct. Because they always lean one way or the other.

Blue state. They will definitely vote for democrats. But here comes the question: let's say California 55 votes. How does that work？Does that mean that if in this state, the voters 40% of them voted for republican and then 60% voted for democrats. Does that mean then you have to use split the 55 between 40 and 60 ?

NO, winner takes all.

inner takes all. They don't split.

This is how you can win the presidency but not win the general election. Because let's say you win all the general votes in California and all the general votes in New York and Florida. You now have the majority of votes. But if you lose all the other states, you will not have enough electoral votes.

I can see how that works. That's why they're always waiting till the last minute, because things can really change can be turned. the entire situation, I see. But how many electoral votes do you need to get to win the presidency to get the presidency？

The magic number is 270.

270 Why？Is it because the total number of electoral votes is...

538.

Which means the tie is possible.

Right. If you get 269 and the other person also gets 269, what happens？

The first thing will probably be a recount to double check to make sure that is what it is.

Because it's quite unlikely.

Yeah, and if that is what it is, it will go to the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives will choose the president, and the Senate will choose the vice president, which in theory could lead to a ticket where you have two different parties in the White House.

Okay, but that's very, very rare.

Happened only once back in 1800.

I see, so going back to what you were saying, in more popular states like California. Does that mean that each person their vote will have less weighting because there's so many more people.

Sadly, yes. So you have to think that even in state of California, there are millions of supporters of the opposite party, but they're in a state that always leans blue. So their votes almost never matter for the presidential election.

That's why you have the red state, traditionally red states. You have traditionally blue states, but also you have something called swing states.

Yeah, so there are some states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and even Florida which swing, so they’ll go one way or the other. Sometimes they go blue, sometimes they go red.

They are mainly I would assume the battling ground.

Yeah, we do call them battleground states. This is where candidates will do a lot of their campaigning coz they really want to get what we call undecided voters. Yeah, go their way.

All right. I think we pretty much give you the basics. I know it still sounds very difficult, so you can probably listen to this a few times to really understand how the system works. Now in the advanced episode, I thought we can get into the general awareness of voting and then also to talk about presidential campaign.

Sounds good.

Sounds interesting. All right. Thank you very much for coming to studio James. We'll go on talking about this topic next time.

Bye everyone.

See you next time. Bye.

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