Elections in the United States
An 1846 painting showing a polling judge ad-
ministering an oath to a voter
The United States has a federal government,
with elected officials at federal (national),
state and local level. On a national level, the
head of state, the President, is elected indir-
ectly by the people, through electors of an
electoral college. In modern times, the elect-
ors virtually always vote with the popular
vote of their state. All members of the federal
legislature, Congress, are directly elected.
There are many elected offices at state level,
each state having at least an elective gov-
ernor and legislature. There are also elected
offices at local level, in counties and cities. It
is estimated that across the whole country,
over one million elected offices are filled in
every electoral cycle.
Both federal and state laws regulate elec-
tions. The United States Constitution defines
(to a basic extent) how federal elections are
held, in Article One and Article Two and vari-
ous amendments. State law regulates most
aspects of electoral law, including primaries,
the eligibility of voters (beyond the basic con-
stitutional definition), the running of each
state’s electoral college, and the running of
state and local elections. The financing of
elections has always been controversial, be-
cause private sources of finance make up
substantial amounts of campaign contribu-
tions, especially in federal elections. Volun-
tary public funding for candidates willing to
accept spending limits was introduced in
1974 for presidential primaries and elections.
The Federal Elections Commission, created
in 1975 by an amendment to the Federal
Election Campaign Act has the responsibility
to disclose campaign finance information, to
enforce the provisions of the law such as the
limits and prohibitions on contributions, and
to oversee the public funding of U.S. presid-
ential elections. The federal government has
also been involved in attempts to increase
voter turnout, by measures such as the Na-
tional Voter Registrati