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The US presidential election is an undirect election happening every 4 years. The Election day is scheduled in November on the tuesday following the 1st of November. In 2012, this is on the 6 of November.

What means an undirect election ?

215 millions of american citizens can vote for their president and their vice-president (the presidential ticket). They vote on the Election Day but their vote will designate an electoral college consisting in 538 Great Electors. These Great Electors will elect the president a few weeks later (on the 17th of December) but with the number of Great Electors for each candidates, we know on the Election Day who will be the next president and his vice-president. The Great Electors are not attributed nationally but for each state. Thus, it is an election state by state and not a national election. It means that a candidtae can be elected even if he has les vote in the whole country. It depends on his victory in each state and the number of Great Electors these state victories will bring him.

How are attributed Great Electors for each state ?

The number of Great Electors for each state is equal to the number of Congressmen attributed to each state (number of representatives depending on the population + 2 senators by state). 3 Great Electors are additionnalyy attributed to the Federal District of Columbia (Washington D.C.) whis is not a state and has no congressmen.

How are Great Electors votes attributed to the candidates ?

The system is the winner takes all. It means that when a candidate wins in a state (no matter what is the margin), he gets the whole great electors attributed to this state. Winning in the big states is a key. 2 exceptions : Nebraska attributes its 6 great electors proportionnally to each candidate. The New Hampshire attributes its 4 great electors by electoral county.

How to win ?

To win, a candidate must get 270 Great Electors. In a case of equality (269 each), the House of Representatives will elect the president and the senate will elect the vice-president.

This is the latest poll of the campaign :

Latest polls & poll map on Huffingtonpost

2 weeks before the Election Day, it was the third and final debate last night between Barack Obama and Mitt Romneyr over the foreign policy.

You can find the 5 parts of it on youtube, uploaded by France24 in english. Here is the 1st part and you can find the links for the other parts on this youtube page :

For the other debates, read as follows,

(Lire la suite…)

On the Huffingtonpost website, you can find news, articles and the most recent polls about the up to come presidential election. Useful for the European section’s pupils and for anyone who is interested in american politics. This will be a neck to neck election.

2012 US Elections on the Huffingtonpost

Here are the latest polls with the % and the map showing for each states the number of Great Electors and the leader :

Recent polls and actualized projection map

De nombreux croquis sont proposés, notamment dans le manuel, sur divers sujets se rapportant à la superpuissance américaine mais ils sont souvent cantonnés à un thème (économique ou politico-militaire)

J’ai essayé d’en faire un complet intégrant les divers aspects de l’expression de la superpuissance américaine (politique, militaire, économique) et ses limites (économies et géopolitiques) à l’échelle mondiale :

Croquis-La-superpuissance-américaine

legende-superpuissance-americaine