4 Politics and elections
The structure of the American party system reflects the decentralisation of
authority under the Constitution and the sectional diversity of American so-
ciety; it reflects also the problems of political organisation in the most elec-
tion-conscious nation in the world. There are approximately one million elec-
tive offices to be filled in the United States, and in any one year there may
be 120,000 or 130,000 elections held, most of them for local school boards.
Inevitably, the electoral system that regulates the filling of these offices is
one of the structures that most faithfully reflects the geographical factors
in American political life, because constituencies are based upon geographi-
cal areas, but it has other important dimensions as well. The complex elec-
tion machinery makes full allowance for the expression of the individualistic
and personal elements in the American electorate. It gives to the individual
voters almost embarrassingly rich opportunities to express their views on
the personalities of the candidates, and to enter fully into the processes of
choosing those who will govern. Party organisation, already fragmented by
the effects of federalism and the separation of powers, is subjected to further
disintegrating forces by the introduction of primary elections, by the use of
the long ballot and by the opportunities for split-ticket voting.
The complexity of the electoral system is due in large part to the fact
that the electoral law, whether it relates to federal, state or local elections,
is almost wholly a matter of state law, with wide variations in practice among
the fifty states. The fact that American elections take place at fixed intervals
structures the whole programme of political life. The exact dates of future
elections are known, so that there is a long process of electioneering, build-
ing up over a two-year period to the climax of the presidential campaign
every four years. Indeed, in a sense, the jockeying for position in the next
presidential election takes place almost as soon as the polls close. The fact
that the elections take place upon the appointed day, regardless of the move-
ment of world events or the complexities of domestic issues, means that elec-
tions are determined by the circumstances of the time, rather than as in a
parliamentary system, where they are part of the machinery available to the
government to try to influence the course of events. Elections to the Senate