Political Party Analysis in the State of California (Research Paper Sample)

Author's Name Professor's Name Course Date Political Party Analysis in the State of California Introduction There are six qualified political parties in the state of California while there are four political parties that are attempting to qualify. The qualified parties are eligible to participate in the election while the parties that are still in the process of qualifying cannot take part in general elections CITATION Ale14 \l 1033 (Alex Padilla, California Secretary of State). Each political party has a different manifesto and their statement of purpose serves as their mission statement. The voters consider this statement while voting for their preferred political party. The statement of purpose is not the only thing that voters consider while voting for the party. Each party is headed by a different personality and this also has some effect on the voting preferences of people. In this paper, the organization of political parties, electorate system within the political parties, history of these parties, how the party system has evolved over the years, the factors that affect the popularity of political parties and many other factors related to political parties will be discussed. The effect of geographical conditions, ethnicity, race and economic conditions of the people of California and how it effects their voting preferences will also come under light. Political Parties in California Currently, there are six qualified political parties in the state of California. The names of these parties are as follows. * Green Party * Democratic Party * Republican Party * Peace and Freedom Party * Libertarian Party * American Independent Party Process for Qualification of a Party There are certain steps that need to be followed and pre-set criteria that needs to be met in order to qualify a political party for presidential elections or primary elections. The two requirements that need to be fulfilled are enlisted below. Hold a Convention or Caucus If a certain number of electors want their political party to be qualified for the elections in the state of California, they must either hold a convention or a caucus in which the name of the party is to be announced. Also, temporary office holders of the party must be appointed. The new political party has to take care that the name is neither misleading nor resembling the names of previously qualified political parties. This has been done in order to avoid confusion among the voters CITATION Ale141 \l 1033 (Alex Padilla, California Secretary of State). Notify the Secretary of State After a successful convention or caucus has been held by the party, an official notification must be filed with California's Secretary of State. This notice should contain the following information. 1 Confirmation about holding of a convention or caucus. 2 Confirmation of electing temporary office holders. 3 Political party must confirm its intent towards qualifying itself under one of the Elections Code. Election code section can be either 5151 or 5100. 4 Political party must give details of temporary office holders of political party. Details must include addresses and names of the office holders. Once this information has been received, California's Secretary of State notifies officials of county elections and includes all the details given by the political party CITATION Ale141 \l 1033 (Alex Padilla, California Secretary of State). Qualification with the Help of Voter Registration Method One of the ways to qualify a political party for elections is through this method. In this method, at least 0.33% of the total registered voters in the state have to complete a registration affidavit in which they disclose that they prefer the new political party that is trying to qualify. As people from different counties submit these affidavits, these affidavits must be submitted to the respective county elections officials. Once all the data has been gathered, the Secretary of State confirms that the affidavits submitted account for 0.33% of the total registered voters, the political party qualifies for the elections. However, it must be ensured by the political party that the process is completed 154 days before the primary elections or 123 days before the general elections. CITATION Ale141 \l 1033 (Alex Padilla, California Secretary of State). Qualification with the Help of Petition Method This method of qualifying a political party includes more number of voters as compared to the other method. This is because this method only requires the signatures of the voters on the petition and nothing else. If 10% of the total voters from previous gubernatorial election sign the petition, the Secretary of State can review and approve the political party. However, the signatures have to verified first by the county elections officials. The political party must ensure that the entire process is completed 135 days before either of the elections CITATION Ale141 \l 1033 (Alex Padilla, California Secretary of State). After Qualification There are certain requirements that must be met by the political parties after qualification in order to retain their qualified status. If a qualified political party attains the support of 0.067% of registered voters in the elections and has one of their candidates running for a top level post (the candidate must achieve 2% of the total votes from last gubernatorial elections), the status of the political party stays as qualified CITATION Ale141 \l 1033 (Alex Padilla, California Secretary of State). History of Political Parties Throughout the American history, there has been a two-party system. Although history has seen many new political parties emerge, they have never been able to come forward as a third big national party. This is partly because the major parties try and merge the small ones into themselves and hence achieve higher number of votes. Another reason is the winner takes all system that makes the futile efforts of smaller parties worthless CITATION ush16 \l 1033 (ushistory.org). When George Washington was elected as the first President of USA, he did not have any affiliations with any political party CITATION Ken76 \l 1033 (Silverman). But after the end of his era, a new American president was elected and he belonged to the Democrat party (back then it was called the Federalist party). The other group in the government formed Anti-Federalist party which was later renamed as Republican party. Since then, these two parties have been governing United States of America. Although the names of these two parties were changed during the course of time, the power remained within these two parties CITATION gov16 \l 1033 (government-and-constitution.org). History of Political Parties in California Since the beginning of democratic system in United States of America, the state of California has always preferred Democrats over Republicans. But there are certain demographic changes that affect the outcome of the elections in California CITATION McG12 \l 1033 (McGhee and Krimm). If we take a look at the chart that shows the division of power among Democrats and Republicans from 1992 onwards in the state of California, we will see that majority of the time, Democrats have held power in California. It was only in the year 1996 that Republicans were able to form a divided government in the State House. Since 1992, Republicans have never had a chance to establish government in the State House as people of California had strong inclination towards the Democrats because of their policies. The governor however was elected from the Republican side most of the time CITATION bal14 \l 1033 (ballotpedia.org). Divided or Unified Governments? The image below shows the division of power in state of California during the years mentioned in the preceding paragraph. CITATION bal14 \l 1033 (ballotpedia.org) The figure clearly shows that the power was usually divided among the political parties with Democrats having a certain edge over the Republicans. But in some years, California saw the Democrats ruling California in a unified form of government. The election of governor's seat was usually won by the Republicans but the other seats under governor were again divided. We can conclude that the power has been divided in the state of California for most of the times. Geographical Variations Although there are four other qualified political parties in the state of California who contest for seats in State House and State Senate, none of them are able to clinch a major share of the seats. In California, it has always been a matter of either Democrat or Republican majority. Let's look at how the vote bank has been divided among different areas of the state of California during the course of years. These are averages based on the elections held over the course of time. Once we see how the inclinations of people were, we will consider the factors that affected people's choice CITATION McG12 \l 1033 (McGhee and Krimm). The figure below shows the areas of state in which the Democrats have emerged as a victorious party most of the time. (ppic.org) From the figure we can clearly see that the popularity of Democrats has increased over the course of years in the mentioned areas. What factors were there to consider that caused this will be discussed further. Social Issues Not everyone has the same mentality. This means that some people are of a liberal mindset while others are of a very conservative mindset. Some care about global warming and the environment while others are more concerned with the provision of job opportunities regardless of what industrialization does to the environment. Similarly, many people want a leader who is charismatic and more of a pompous kind than a leader who does not love the camera a lot and likes to hide beh...