Some information about the USA political parties and electoral system

Here you have some answers to the questions you asked about the USA political parties and electoral system: 

- Here you have the explanation to the symbols of the Democratic and Republican party:

 Source: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/arts-culture/political-animals-republican-elephants-and-democratic-donkeys-89241754/

The donkey started being used by the Democrats in the 19th century. During the presidential campaign of that year Democrat candidate Andrew JAckson was called a jackass (a donkey) by his opponents and he decided to adopt this animal for his campaign. Later cartoonist Thomas Nast popularized the symbol.

Thomas Nast was also the inventor of the elephant that became the symbol of the Republican Party. In 1874 he drew a cartoon inwhich the Democrats' donkey appeared as clothed in lion's skin, scaring all the other animals. There was an elephant labelled as "The Republican Vote" and from then on the elephant was associated with the Republican Party.

Here you have Nast's cartoon in Harper's Weekly:

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-parties-got-their-animal-symbols/

Democrats today say that the donkey is smart and brave, while Republicans say that the elephant is strong and dignified.

Here you have some more information about this topic: 

http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/how-did-the-republican-and-democratic-parties-get-their-animal-symbols

http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0881985.html

- The colours associated to every party date back from year 2000 and it comes from the colours the TV channels used to represent the states every party won. . Red is associated to the Republican Party and blue to the Democratic Party. This is the opposite to the use of these colours in Europe, where red colour is associated to leftist parties and blue colour is associated to the conservative- rightist parties. Curiously, before 2000 several channels used red for the Democrats and blue for the Republicans, as we do in Europe.

Here you have two more links about this topic:

http://www.vox.com/2016/9/15/12926618/why-red-means-republican-and-blue-means-democrat

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/6/3609534/republicans-red-democrats-blue-why-election

- This video explains why they vote on Tuesday. There is a campaign to move the voting day to a holiday, so that more people can vote:

- This is a video that explains the process of primary elections, where the USA citizens elect the candidates of each party:

- This video explains all the process to run for the presidential elections:

 - Here you have some short videos that explain the peculiar electoral system of the USA, with the importance of the electoral college:

Some information about the USA presidential election

Next Tuesday there will be presidential election in the USA. The process is a little different from the elections in Spain, but there are also some similar aspects, such as the fact that the people don´t elect the president. In Spain, the Cortes (Parliament) do it. In the USA, this is a task of the Electoral College, formed by the electors of every federal State. The electors (Congress members and Senators) are chosen by the people, but the party which gets more votes on a State gets all the electors of that State. For example, if Barack Obama gets 99,000 votes in Oklahoma and Mitt Romney gets 89,999 votes there, the 7 electors of the State will go to the Democrats.

Here you have a list of the electoral votes every State has: 

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/allocation.html

On the following videos you will understand the role of this Electoral College in the final results of the elections. That´s why the main candidates calculate the States where they can win and focus all their attention on the so called "swing States", the ones where the results are still not decided or change everytime there are elections. Those swing States are the ones where the candidates can attract undecided voters. The main candidates have spent most of their time and money there and they have campaigned very little in the States where they consider the results are decided yet. 

And this is a historical review of the results of all the presidential elections since the foundation of the USA:

If you want to learn more about elections in the USA, click on the following link:

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/

You probably think that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are the only candidates to the USA Presidency, but there are more. The mass media use to focus their attention only on the cadidates of the two main parties (Democrats and Republicans), but there are other political options. Here you have a link where you can learn more about all the candidates:

http://www.politics1.com/p2012.htm

And finally, next Tuesday elections will also serve to choose the governors of 12 States and decide on other topics, such as marijuana legalization, same-sex marriage, healthcare, tax increases, gambling, public employees´ unions or death penalty. For example, California voters will have the opportunity of deciding on the abolition of  death penalty. On the following map of the USA you can click on every State to learn more about the ballot propositions citizens will have to vote: 

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Portal:Ballot_measures

P.S: Here you have the links to an article in Spanish about the reasons to ask people for the abolition of death penalty in California and the same information in English:

http://blogs.elpais.com/the-american-way-of-life/2012/11/la-pena-de-muerte-es-cara.html

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/public-opinion-new-poll-shows-dramatic-jump-support-repealing-californias-death-penalty

And this is a link to another article which shows that there is no relation between the existence and use of death penalty and the decrease number of violent crimes:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/editorials-evidence-does-not-support-death-penalty-deterrent

More about the reform of the Spanish electoral system

Source: http://cowell.ucsc.edu/votes/home/

There have been different attempts of reforming the LOREG (Ley Orgánica del Régimen Electoral General). The last one was based on a report the State Council prepared for the Government. The State Council concluded that the electoral system is disproportioned and benefits the biggest parties and the least populated provinces, because it assures every province a minimum of two deputies in the Congress. The State Council proposed to enlarge the number of deputies from the present 350 to 400 and to assign only one deputy per province. 

Source: http://www.publico.es/detalle-imagen/214149/?c=http://www.publico.es/espana/214149/la-ley-electoral-que-propone-el-consejo-de-estado-prima-al-pp

Here you have a more detailed explanation of this proposition: 

http://www.publico.es/espana/214149/la-ley-electoral-que-propone-el-consejo-de-estado-prima-al-pp

This proposition was debated in the Congress last year and it was refused. The biggest parties and the nationalist and autonomous parties voted against this reform: 

http://www.publico.es/espana/302023/el-congreso-cierra-el-debate-de-la-reforma-electoral

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/PSOE/PP/bloquean/reforma/sistema/electoral/elpepuesp/20100317elpepunac_26/Tes

And this is complete text of the LOREG:

http://noticias.juridicas.com/base_datos/Admin/lo5-1985.html

Corrections to the charts of the Spanish electoral system

I´ve revised the charts included on the book and there were some mistakes. Here you have the corrections: 

On the first chart I coloured 8 boxes in yellow, instead of 7 and one of them was wrong. The most voted party gets 3 seats, the second party gets 3 seats and the third one gets only 1 seat. If there were 8 seats to be assigned, party number 1 would get the eighth seat with 85,000 votes. This is the right chart:

	PARTY 1	PARTY 2	PARTY 3	PARTY 4	PARTY 5
SEAT 1	340,000  (1st seat)	280,000  (2nd seat)	160,000  (4th seat)	60,000	15,000
SEAT 2	170,000  (3rd seat )	140,000  (5th seat)	80,000	30,000	7,500
SEAT 3	113,333  (6th seat)	93,333  (7th seat)	53,333	20,000	5,000
SEAT 4	85,000	70,000	40,000	15,000	3,750
SEAT 5	68,000	56,000	32,000	12,000	3,000
SEAT 6	56,667	46,667	26,667	10,000	2,500
SEAT 7	48,571	40,000	22,857	8,571	2,143

And here you have the corrections to the second chart, about the percentage of votes and the percentage of seats obtained. When I wrote this, I rounded the numbers up. This is why it didn´t make 100.

	PARTY 1	PARTY 2	PARTY 3	PARTY 4	PARTY 5
PERCENTAGE OF VOTES RECEIVED	39.76%	32.74%	18.71%	7.01%	1.75%
PERCENTAGE OF SEATS WON	43%	43%	14%	0%	0%

Source: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistema_D'Hondt

And finally, here you have three flash animations of past elections that will help you to understand better the assignment of seats: 

http://www.elecciones.mir.es/generales2008/i_visita8.html

http://www.elmundo.es/elecciones2000/cifras/graficodhont.html

http://terranoticias.terra.es/elecciones-2004/ley-dhont/