U.S. presidential election

Encyclopedia of Political Information.

The United States presidential elections determine who becomes the President of the United States.

Table of contents

1 How elections are administered 2 Results 3 Voter turnout 4 External links

How elections are administered

The election of the United States President is governed by Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution, as amended by Amendment XII.

The President and Vice President are elected on the same ticket by the U.S. Electoral College, whose members are elected directly from each state; the President and Vice President serve four-year terms.

Elections take place every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The last election was held on November 7, 2000. See U.S. presidential election, 2000.

The next election will take place on November 2, 2004.

Results

* "Major Opponent" is defined as a candidate receiving greater than 1% of the total popular vote for elections including and after 1824, or greater than 5 electoral votes for elections including and before 1820. (This column may not be complete).

† Denotes a minority President—one receiving less than 50% of all popular votes.

‡ Denotes a (minority) President who did not receive a plurality of the popular votes and the opposing candidate who did.

Voter turnout

Voter turnout in Presidential elections has been on the decline in recent years, although it bounced back slightly during the 2000 election from 1996's lows. While turnout has been decreasing, registration has been increasing. Registration rates varied from 65% to 70% of the voting age population from the 1960s to the 1980s, and due in part to greater government outreach programs, registration swelled to 75% in 1996 and 2000. Despite greater registration, however, turnout has not greatly improved.

Year	Voting Age Population ¹	Turnout	% Turnout of VAP
2000	205,815,000	105,586,274	51.30%
1996	196,511,000	96,456,345	49.08%
1992	189,529,000	104,405,155	55.09%
1988	182,778,000	91,594,693	50.11%
1984	174,466,000	92,652,680	53.11%
1980	164,597,000	86,515,221	52.56%
1976	152,309,190	81,555,789	53.55%
1972	140,776,000	77,718,554	55.21%
1968	120,328,186	73,211,875	60.84%
1964	114,090,000	70,644,592	61.92%
¹ It should be noted that the voting age population includes all persons over the age of 18 as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, which necessarily includes a significant number of persons ineligible to vote, such as non-citizens or felons. The actual number of eligible voters is somewhat lower. The number of non-citizens in 1994 was approximately 13 million, and in 1996, felons numbered around 1.3 million, so it can be estimated that around 7-10% of the voting age population is ineligible to vote. External links Electoral College Box Scores US Presidential Election Maps   The text of this article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from an Wikipedia Article. Home Page Current events Politics Government Political science International relations