UNITED STATES PRESIDENCY

Northern Advocate, 31 October 1936, Page 6

UNITED STATES PRESIDENCY

The people of the United States are in the throes of a Presidential election,-' and political feeling’ is running at fever heat. The method by which the executive head - of the Great Republic; is chosen is long and complicated, and the average onlooker in another. cpuntry may be - pardoned if he becomes befogged and fails to understand the position as suggested by '* l straw ’ * votes of different kinds. It is t not the system that is at fault. Rather is it the spectacular propaganda of the different parties which tends to confound the position. Up to the present time the candidates for the Presidency have beejn busy electioneering, but on Tuesday next the contest will enter a new phase. The - candidates—apart from smaller fry of whom little will he heard—are Mr Franklin Roosevelt, the retiring President, who carries the Democrat banner, and Mr Alfred Landbn, who is the choice ofvtlie Republican Party. The efforts of the parties \o select their candidates is a feature of every presidential election. On Tuesday next each State in the Union will appoint a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the Sfate may be entitled in the Congress. The electors so appointed will meet in the capitals of their respective States on the second Monday of next January, and there vote for a President by ballot. The ballots will then be sent to Washington, where they wil'l be opened on the second Wednesday in February by the President of the Senate in the presence of Congress, and the candidate who has received a, majority of the whole number of electoral votes cast will be declared President of the United States for the next, four years. If no one should have a majority, then from the three> highest on the list, the House of Representatives will)

elect a President, the, votes being taken by States, the representation from each- State having one vote. There is .also a Vice-Presi-dent, who, in the event of the death of the President, becomes ex officio President for the remainder of the term.