You don’t get the day without work, however it’s on a weekday in winter; there’s no sausage sizzle; and, nicely, the loser won’t settle for the consequence. Elections in America are laborious yakka.
Right here is how they examine with Australia’s.
Timing
US presidential elections are held each 4 years and at all times in November – winter within the northern hemisphere. Particularly, they’re held on the Tuesday after the primary Monday in November. In Australia, elections should be held on a Saturday, and they are often referred to as any time inside three years, on a date decided by the governor common, upon request by the federal government.
Any why Tuesday? Within the early days of US elections, most People had been farmers and Tuesday have them sufficient time (at some point every method) to journey to the polling stations and again. Saturdays and Sundays had been excluded for non secular causes and Wednesdays had been typically market days.
Obligatory voting – and suppression
Voting in Australia is obligatory, and failing to vote is punishable with fines. Within the US, as in a lot of the world, voting just isn’t obligatory. In 2020, about two-thirds of eligible voters turned out for the presidential elections.
In Australia, to be able to vote you have to have registered. On the polling station, you’re requested your identify and handle, your identify is crossed off an inventory, and you’re given a poll paper. Polls open at 8am and shut at 6pm. Folks also can vote early by postal vote.
Within the US, you have to even have registered and most states require voters to current ID when voters. There are sometimes lengthy queues, and a few states have legal guidelines about these queues.
In 2021, Georgia Republicans enacted SB202, a invoice with sweeping voting restrictions, together with a ban on giving out meals or water inside 150ft of a polling place or inside 25ft of any voter standing in a line – which might lengthen nicely past the 150ft radius. Violating it’s a misdemeanour punishable by as much as a yr in jail and a $1,000 effective.
It may take hours to get to the entrance of the road in Georgia – some individuals waited 11 hours within the state in 2020 – and the measures had been broadly seen as an apparent try to make it tougher for Black voters to forged a poll.
Counting and outcomes
Each Australians and People principally vote on paper ballots, although there are some digital voting machines within the US.
In Australia, the Australian Electoral Fee normally supplies a sign of the rely on election night time. There isn’t an official consequence on the night time, and indications of outcomes – referred to as by analysts and media, for instance – depend upon how shut the rely is.
Within the US, unusually, the Related Press information company tallies votes and declares the winner, weeks earlier than the official consequence. It has been performed this manner since 1848 as a result of, the AP says: “Principally, nobody wished to attend for weeks to search out out who gained elections.”
They do that utilizing greater than 4,000 vote rely reporters who report on the outcomes, AP writes, “from contained in the places the place ballots are literally counted, phoning in uncooked vote totals as quickly as they’re accessible. In all, there’s an AP vote rely reporter at practically each county election workplace in America on Election Day.”
Altering arms
Within the US, the brand new president is inaugurated greater than two months after the elections, on 20 January, or 21 January if 20 January falls on a Sunday.
In Australia it occurs inside days. In 2022, the Australian PM, Anthony Albanese, was sworn in on the Monday following the election on Saturday.
Seats in parliament vs electoral faculty votes
In Australia, voters vote for members of parliament – from a given get together – and the get together that wins the vast majority of seats within the Home of Representatives, which has 151 seats, chooses who they need to be their chief and subsequently the prime minister.
Within the US, voters vote for a president and working mate, or a ticket – for instance, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz or Donald Trump and JD Vance.
However they’re really voting for a bunch of individuals referred to as electors, who forged the electoral faculty votes. The candidate who receives essentially the most votes from the individuals in a state is, normally, the candidate who receives all the electoral votes of that state.
The presidential nominee with greater than half of the electoral faculty votes turns into the president of the USA. Completely different states have completely different numbers of electoral faculty votes, with the quantity determined based mostly on the census.
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