Comments | oxmyx: Someone help me

oxmyx

Someone help me

Nov 08, 2006 13:00

There is WAY too much reading on wikipedia for me to understand this in a short period of time. For the US Senate, not every state votes at the same time? Hence why there are no results for states like OR in this election...am I correct in this? I thought I understood US politics, but maybe not fully!

Comments 7

gindaisy November 8 2006, 21:16:25 UTC

yep, thats right that all states dont vote at the same time. They are 6 year terms and they're staggered. About a third are up for election every 2 years.

oxmyx November 8 2006, 23:11:39 UTC

Do they make sure to balance out the states by geography, population, etc. to ensure that there is balance in the groupings?

gindaisy November 8 2006, 23:29:53 UTC

Each state gets 2 seats and they're balanced so that both seats aren't up for grabs at the same time.

mortaine November 8 2006, 23:05:30 UTC

What sugartoast said. Only 1/3 of the Senate is up for re-election, and they get re-elected every 6 years. There are 2 senators per state, and they are never elected in the same year (so there will always be someone junior than the other). In this election, only about 10 Republicans were at risk, while 22 Democrats were up.

The whole House is up every 2 years, with the representatives being based on population, rather than 2/state (this is why we do a census every 10 years, by the way, and why we have to re-register to vote every time we move-- for proper representation in government).

oxmyx November 8 2006, 23:15:59 UTC

Ok is this all done with some mathematical formula? When was this system devised? Could you theoretically have one democrat and one republican voted in a particular state?

So let's take Oregon for example. They are not up this year. So that automatically means that the residents will be voting for one person in 2008 and then another in 2010? Is it always done in even years? A person is then elected for a 6 year term? Wow.

The House thing I get...it's more like the CDN system here.

mortaine November 8 2006, 23:47:10 UTC

Could you theoretically have one democrat and one republican voted in a particular state?

Absolutely. In fact, Oregon has one Democrat and one Republican serving as senators.

So let's take Oregon for example. They are not up this year. So that automatically means that the residents will be voting for one person in 2008 and then another in 2010? Is it always done in even years? A person is then elected for a 6 year term? Wow.Yes. One of the Oregon senators will be up in 2008, and the other will be up in 2010. The senators are re-elected in "classes" so you'll see the class number for each senator listed next to their names in the senator list on senate.gov. This was the Class I election. Class II will be elected in 2008, and Class III in 2010 ( ... )

djsasso November 9 2006, 00:25:42 UTC

6 years shouldn't shock you....the term technically in the Canadian Parliament is 5 years and our Senate is a life time position (or well rather they are booted out at 75) so 6 isn't that big a difference. The shocker for me is more the 2 year term of the house in the US. How can you get anything done in 2 years? However, unlike the states parties can call elections sooner in order to reaffirm their mandate to lead the people. Or as is the case with our last election they had a minority government and lost on a confidence vote so an election was forced.