[ Music ] ^M00:00:10 ^M00:00:15 >> The voting process. We'll talk about the voting process in the United States. What is the voting process? It's the process of making a decision between one, two, three, or more candidates. A candidate, this is the sign for a candidate, is a person who runs for a position of power such as; president, senator, representative, and even a sheriff. In our country we have many different positions in government. Some positions are voted upon whereas others are appointed. Today we'll look at the voting process for those specific positions. ^M00:00:59 ^M00:01:03 Our right to vote, in and of itself, is guaranteed in the US Constitution. The US Constitution is a document and it's a set of laws that describes what kind of government we have, how it's established, what it looks like and what rules our government has to follow. Our government must follow those laws and our governmental powers are not superior to the constitution and the US government has to follow the constitution. It tells how the government is established, what the government can do. Again, the US Constitution, in and of itself, explains what kind of government we have, and there's many different types of governments, but in our US Constitution explains that we have a republic. Our Constitution explains that our government has to be divided into three groups which are called the branches of government; and each branch has their own responsibility and is defined as so. The first branch is the Executive Branch, basically our president. The second branch is the Legislative, which means our Congress. And the last branch is the Judicial Branch, which means our Supreme Courts. Each branch has their own task and responsibility in order to maintain a balance with each group and they make sure that one group is not superior to the other. The executive branch, meaning the president, is responsible for following the constitution to make sure we follow the laws and rules stated and also enforcing those laws. The Legislative Branch, Congress, will think of new laws and bills that need to be passed, and those bills are submitted by the people and what they desire to be laws. Congress will draft bills and internally discuss and then submit it to the President. The President can look at the bill and see if it matches the vision of our country; if so then he can approve, if not then he can veto, which means that bill is not a law yet, will be sent back to Congress and they can either try to change it to match what the vision wants, what the president wants, or do away with it. The Judicial Branch is responsible for making sure the laws, in and of itself, matches the Constitution, and they can decide that a law is unconstitutional, which means that law can't be used as a law and must be taken out. And they can also decide that the law is constitutional. Out of those three branches, the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial; out of those three, the first two are voted in through the voting process. For example, President is voted in by the people, Senators, people in congress, are voted in, however, judges are not voted in, they are appointed by the President and they are approved by Congress. ^M00:04:23 ^M00:04:28 President and Congress are considered as representatives of the people, meaning they are responsible for following what the people want. They are expected to run America in accordance to the people's desires and whatever we want, they'll pass laws and run our country according to our expectations. Suppose a person wants to become a Congressman or they want to become President, and they have to run in an election. And suppose they decide to run in an election, they have to go through a process called campaigning. ^M00:05:08 ^M00:05:13 Campaigning, when a person decides they want to be involved in government and they have found a position that they are interested in, really a position is considered a job, they need to start a campaign. The purpose of a campaign is to get that person's name out there in the public, so they know who they are, who's running, and that is called a candidate. I've used that word before. A candidate means they have not been elected but they are interested in that position and they campaign. A campaign is an opportunity for the candidate to meet the people they will represent. Upon interacting with the people, the candidate shares his or her vision and sees what the people want him or her to do. The goal is to win the election. Oftentimes the candidate will be running against one or another person or maybe two, or three, or four, it can be more, and the goal of course is to win. After the campaign, which is often a few months after, they will have a day when people will gather together and vote to decide who is selected. That day is called election day. And that day, again, is a day when people come to vote. People will vote using a ballet, which means a secret process in which they put their vote in a box or a computer and it's sent out. It can also be selected on a piece of paper and it's given anonymously. Oftentimes you'll see people walking into a closed booth and the intention of the booth is to keep the vote private so that people do not know what other people are voting for and so they don't follow other people's vote, you decide. ^M00:07:11 ^M00:07:15 After the votes are gathered, with all the information, they will do a vote count to see who has the highest number of votes. When that is all said and done they will announce the winner of the election and the winner wins the position that they campaigned for. If they ran for President they will become President. If you ran for sheriff you will win that position and become sheriff. Those who campaigned and did not win do not get a position. ^M00:07:44 ^M00:07:50 Suppose you're interested in voting and you want to participate in the voting process in order to select a candidate to meet my own vision for my country. There are two qualifications; one, you have to be a US citizen. And what does it mean to be a citizen? It means that you are born here in the United States or you moved from another country then you decided to become a citizen and go through that process. It's called the naturalization process, which means you take a test, if you pass you swear an oath and then you become a US citizen. The second qualification is you must be 18 years old or above. Sometimes you feel, I'm just an individual, I'm just only one person. How can I get my ideas across and be heard by the government? That's where a representative comes into the picture. Remember, as I mentioned, our country is a republic. And a republic means that we have many different representatives from different areas of our country coming together to represent the whole country but also local interests and their goals for the government. And the representatives come to represent all these different interests, and it's the same with our country, we are split up with different areas of representation and the representative in those areas are responsible for gathering the wants of the people and the laws they desire. And the representatives will gather together in Congress to have discussions of what they need to do in order to improve our country. Your job is to make sure that you select a representative that matches your vision of our country to make sure it matches your ideals and your wants, and in turn a good representative makes sure that their vision matches yours, the people. And if a representative is good it will accommodate your ideas of government. However, sometimes you have an idea but another person has a different idea and that's where voting is very important. If a group of people with the same ideas and enough of them vote and win the election then they will get a representative that shares the same ideas. If another group has the most votes then they will have a candidate that they want to be selected to represent them, so that's why your vote is very important. And make sure that your interests align with the representatives that are selected and if your thoughts or ideas don't align with another representative but they have the most votes, make sure you tell people to vote for another person because you want that person to become our representative. That is often why you see more than one or two or three different people campaigning for one position and they each have different ideas and visions of what the government will look like. Now I'm going to wrap this up, but I want to summarize what the voting process looks like. The government has an open position and a person decides that they would like to have that position and they will become a candidate. And so now, as a candidate they will start a campaign and they will campaign for that particular position, and oftentimes it's against another person with different ideas. And so now my job as a candidate is to get people to vote for me, to explain my ideas, to get my name out there in the public in hopes of more people voting for me. And the public will now vote in a private ballot and when that is all said and done the votes will be gathered, the numbers will be seen, and whoever has the highest number of votes will win the election. Then that person will be announced and placed into that position. ^E00:11:51