On Monday, I had the opportunity to attend a webinar hosted by Cornell Law professor Stephen Yale-Loehr, called “Ballots and Borders: Election 2020”. The webinar provided an in-depth explanation of the U.S. immigration system, and laid out what is at stake for international students and scholars who are studying in the U.S. during or after the 2020 election.
As I exited the Zoom call at the end of the webinar, I found
myself more informed in certain areas of U.S. politics, yet I was filled with
more questions than ever when it comes to the U.S. election system “in action”.
For context, I am a dual U.S./Norwegian citizen, and have spent the majority of
my life in Norway, until I moved to the U.S. three years ago to attend PLU. I
have inquired about the U.S. election system countless times, knowing that my
status as a citizen permits me to vote in elections – so it might be handy to
know how things work around here. That said, I still don’t fully understand how
it works, and I probably never will, because if there existed an award for “World’s
Most Unnecessarily Complex and Confusing Election System”, it would most
certainly be handed to the U.S. of A. To help clear things up for my fellow
international students, this blogpost will serve as a guide to the U.S.
presidential election, and how its outcomes might affect you.
Primary Election vs. General Election
After the primaries conclude, the presidential nominees are
chosen for each party based on the results. The nominees can then announce
their selection for vice president, and together they can start campaigning to
win the popular opinion in the general election. In other words, the general
election is characterized by only having one presidential candidate per
political party. This year, the general election will be held on November 3rd,
and it is always held on the first Tuesday of November, every fourth year.
The Electoral College
To me, the electoral college is the most perplexing element of the election system. Unlike many other democracies in the world, the U.S. president is not selected based on a national popular vote. Instead, citizens in each state cast their general election ballot, which votes a number of party representatives into what is called the Electoral College, where their main objective is to elect a President after Election Day. Without going into too much detail, a presidential candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the election, out of a total 538 possible votes. The closest attempt to make this process representative is designating a fixed number of electoral votes to each state based on its population size. For instance, California has a population of nearly 40 million, and so they receive a significant number of electoral votes, 55 to be exact, compared to smaller states such as New Mexico, who receives 5 electoral votes. Are we overwhelmed yet?
It’s worth noting that this system has been critiqued by Americans
and non-nationals alike, arguing that it is not representative of the actual
public opinion. Instead, the public’s opinion is used to elect other politicians,
who then get to make the “final call” as to who becomes President. A good
example of how this process may be unrepresentative is the 2016 presidential
election, where candidate Hilary Clinton actually won the popular vote by nearly
3 million people. This means that there were three million more ballots cast for
Clinton than Trump, however… we all know how that turned out. One reason for
this outcome, and one of the main critiques of using an electoral college to
determine the outcome of an election, has to do with the number of electoral
votes allotted to smaller states. The argument is that there exists an imbalance
in voting power between different states, and although larger states receive
more electoral votes – it is still not proportional across the board. Essentially,
voters who live in larger states may feel as though their vote has less of an
impact than those who live in smaller states. This is because smaller states
still receive a substantial number of electoral votes – and may have a larger
say in the outcome than what is proportional to their population size.
The 2020 Presidential Candidates
The webinar I mentioned at the beginning of this blogpost was mainly spent reviewing each of the presidential candidates in regard to where they stand on immigration matters, and how this might affect international students. Immigration has been a signature issue for Trump throughout the 2016 election, as well as his past four years in office. In short, he will very likely continue his efforts to reduce both legal and illegal immigration, which will consequently affect the international student population in the U.S. as well. Most notably, the Trump administration has recently proposed the elimination of “Duration of Status” for F-1 students. “Duration of Status” allows F-1 students (and other student visa holders) to stay in the U.S. without a hard expiration date, and it allows students to renew their paperwork pretty easily if said student would like to pursue further education in the U.S. after their initial program end date. The elimination of “Duration of Status”, then, would result in heightened restrictions for how long international students may be permitted to stay/renew their stay in the U.S. after they finish their program.
Biden, on the other hand, is interested in reverting many of the immigration laws and policies that have been passed under the Trump administration, and supports a comprehensive immigration reform. Just some food for thought!
With that said, I want to encourage all eligible voters to GO VOTE PLEASE, and fellow international students – tell your friends what’s at stake and to GO VOTE PLEASE!!! :-)
Sources:
https://www.cfr.org/election2020/candidate-tracker
“Borders and Ballots: Election 2020” Webinar, hosted by Stephen Yale-Loehr
