Currently with the US presidential elections, many have become curious concerning the differences between the UK election system and the US election system.
In the UK, an election is held every five years to elect members of parliament also known as MPs.
The general elections are where different parties campaign their promises and promote their policies and the party with the majority of seats typically form the government with the leader becoming the prime minister.
However, in the US presidential elections are held every four years usually on the first Tuesday of November, and congressional elections are held every two years where Representatives campaign to be elected.
In both the UK and the US there is a multi-party system where there are two main parties, Conservative and Labour for the UK and the Democrats and Republicans for the US with smaller parties that play an important role in the political discussions within each of the governments.
The campaigns for the prime minister in the UK last around a couple of weeks, spending is limited by the law so there is only a limit on how much a party spends campaigning thus restricting the influence of money on elections.
On the other hand, the US presidential campaigns can last over a year with large amounts of money being spent on advertisements and events to promote the individual candidates
In the US there is a system called the electoral college system where each state gets a certain amount of electoral votes based on their population size, within each state the voters make their votes and the majority wins all the electoral votes for that state.
In early January congress gathered all the electoral votes and the candidate with at least 270 votes was the new president.
In the UK there is a system called First past the post which is a system where voters go to polling stations to fill out a ballot paper and then place it in a sealed box to be sent to the election officials who count the votes in private and then the candidate with the most votes wins and is appointed prime minister.
Overall, these are the differences between the UK and US election systems.
