Learn the English vocabulary you need to follow along and join in the discussions about the US elections, with a quiz along the way.
As well as the voting process, we'll explain:
the race metaphor
terms for the political parties
blue red and purple states
who can and can't vote
some effects of COVID-19
common collocations like hold an election and going to the polls
the primaries
words like platform, campaign, and polls
mail-in, absentee and provisional ballots
We’re expecting a lot of controversy the 2020 election, so we plan to go deeper in a future video and look at English vocabulary about some of the issues.
#election2020 #Electionvocabulary #Englishvocabulary
The images of the democratic primary candidates belong to Gage Skidmore and published under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license. They are available here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_candidates
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It's election season in the US so we're
going look at words that will be in the news. So you can follow what's happening and join
in the discussions. And we think that you might know a lot about
American elections already. So we're having a quiz! Let's start with a really easy question. Who is the president of the US? And also the vice president? Well the president is Donald Trump and his
vice president is Mike Pence. And Donald Trump is the incumbent, the person
who currently holds the office.
And he and Pence are running for president
and vice president again. Running. We often use the metaphor of racing when we
talk about elections. We call the competition an election race. And we talk about running mates, like friends
who run together. Trump and Pence are running mates. And erm ...
Who are they running against? Yes. So that's your next question. Who are their opponents? They're running against Joe Biden and Kamala
Harris. Next question, what political parties do they
belong to? Tru
mp and Pence are Republicans. Biden and Harris are Democrats. Sometimes you'll hear the Republican party
called the GOP. What does that stand for? Grand old party. And it's just a nickname for the...
Republican party. Yes. Ok we have a picture question now. What do these symbols represent? The elephant represents the Republican Party
and the Donkey represents the Democratic Party. Now two other useful terms: right-wing and
left-wing. Generally speaking, the Republican party is
right-wing and the
y're strongly in favour of the capitalist system. And Democrats are left-wing and in favor of
social change. And in the US, you also hear liberal and progressive. Yes, it's like left-wing. OK so there are two big political parties,
but sometimes there are third parties as well. Right sometimes there are candidates from
the Green Party for example, oh and Kayne West is running. Yeah, but just in some states. Kayne is running as an independent candidate
but there's another political party. It's th
e third largest party. Perhaps you know it? It's the Libertarian Party. In the US Libertarians are very interested
in political freedom. They're often skeptical of government and
want free-market capitalism. And next we should talk about colours. So you have some terms for the states in the
US. You have red states. You have blue states. And you have purple states. Red states are...
Republican states. Blue states are...
Democratic states. And the purple states are swing states. They move between
always voting Democrat and
always voting Republican. We have some really interesting times ahead
because many of the red states appear to be turning blue in this election. We're looking at states like Arizona and
even Texas which has been reliably red for decades. They could be turning blue. Notice what Jay just did there? Instead of using the words democrat and republican,
he said blue and red. It's just a quick way to describe how states
vote. Americans do it a lot. So how can you remember whi
ch colour is which
party? If you have a good way tell us in the comments. OK, next question? Who can vote in a US election? For example, can I vote? I'm British so I can't vote in this election
because I'm not an American citizen. But in order to vote you have to be an American
citizen, and also a registered voter. Right? I am a registered voter. I'm also over 18 which you have to be to
vote in an American election. OK, now what about felons? A felon is a person who has committed a serious
crime
. Can they vote? And what about ex-felons, so people who went
to prison but have now served their time and come out. It varies from state to state, but in many
states itís difficult for ex-felons to vote. It's a controversial issue. Some people argue that if you've served your
time in jail or completed your probation, you should automatically be able to vote again. And other people argue that you broke the
law. So you showed poor judgement, and so you should
lose the right to vote for an unspeci
fied period of time. Civil rights organizations complain that this
means the laws in some states systematically discriminate against black voters. We've made another vocabulary video about
racism that you can see here. But another issue is not everyone is registered
to vote. Where do you register to vote, Jay? Many people decide not to register because,
certainly in Philadelphia it's the case that, jury selection comes from the list of people
who are registered to vote! A jury is a group of peop
le, itís twelve,
right? Usually. And they listen to a case in court and decide
if someone is guilty of a crime. Or not. And it takes up your time, you can't say
no to jury duty unless you have some very specific reasons, and people don't want to
spend that time so they don't register to vote. Around election season, or before it, you
find people normally in the streets who are just stopping you and saying, 'Are you registered
to vote?' because they want to get out the votes, both democratic and
republican, it
doesn't matter. They want people to vote. But not this year. Ah. COVID-19 has really reduced the effort to
get out the vote. Notice this phrase. To get out the vote. You'll hear it in the news a lot on election
day. It means to encourage people to vote in an
election. OK, next question. When will they hold the presential election? Notice she said 'hold'. Hold means 'have' in that context. Like you have an election, you hold an election. Hold is just a little more... a little more
formal? Mhmm. And you could hold meetings. You can hold competitions, you can hold... Errr. Conventions. Yes. So when will this year's election be held? It's usually the first Tuesday in November. Now that's the presidential election, but
before that, you held another election. And that's another question. It's a picture question again. Who are all these people and what do they
have in common? If you can name them, we'll be super impressed. They were the last candidates to drop out
of this year'
s democratic presidential primary election. So another question. What's a primary election? Primary elections are where you select the
candidates of a specific political party. So in the primaries this year, Republicans
selected Donald Trump and Democrats selected Joe Biden. But this is a curious thing about American
elections. When you register to vote, you actually name
the party that youíre going to vote for. Sometimes. You don't have to. You can say 'I'm an independent'. But most people woul
d say 'I'm a Republican'
or 'I'm a Democrat'. And that's strange to me 'cause in the UK
we don't say which party we want to vote for. Well in most states you have to be a member
of a political party to vote in primary elections. If you want to pick a candidate, you have
to state your party. Ah, so that's why the primary... so that's
why the registration process works like that. Exactly. But it also means that independent voters
can't pick any of those candidates. Ah, so if you're an independent,
you don't
get to choose who the candidates will be. In most states, that's correct. OK. We can't choose who the candidates are in
the UK either. Well, your parties do that? There are open primaries and closed primaries,
aren't there? Right. Open primaries allow people from either political
party to vote in the other party's primary and select a candidate. And it also allows independents to pick a
candidate from one party or the other. So when is there an open primary and when
is there a closed
one? It depends on each state. OK, and you're saying most states hold closed
primaries. That's correct. Another important question. Or two questions. How often do Americans hold presidential elections? And how many times can someone be elected
president? We hold them every four years, and you can
only hold the office of President twice. So it's a maximum of eight years. Right. How do you decide who you want to vote for? Well you look at what they stand for, and
often what they stand for is writt
en into the party's platform. Ah, do you know what a platform is? It's a statement of their aims and goals. It tells you what they'll do if they get
into power. We can say platform in British English too,
but often we'll call it a manifesto. We sometimes say that too. And the party accepts the platform at their
convention. They hold the convention every four years
before the presidential election. OK, the conventions were very different this
year, weren't they? Right, the conventions were virtua
l this year
because of COVID-19, and while the Democrats have a platform, the Republicans decided not
to have one. That must be the first time ever. The first time in anybody's memory. Donald Trump decided that he was the platform. It's been an unusual campaign this year. Campaign. It can be a noun or a verb. A political campaign. It's the series of actions candidates take
to try to get elected. Holding rallies and debates. Phoning voters, mailing fliers, advertisements. OK another question. Th
is November Americans are going to the polls. What does 'going to the polls?' mean? It just means going to vote. And polls are the places we go. So where do you go to vote normally? Oh the place I go to vote is right around
the corner. OK. Is it in a school because sometimes they use
local schools and turn them into, they call them polling stations or polling places. The polling place I go to is in the lobby
of an apartment building. OK. Poll is another word that can be a noun or
a verb. It can
be the process of finding out what
people think, so an opinion poll, for example. It's like a survey. You ask lots of people the same questions
and record the results. We'll be following the polls closely this
election. And erm, what's the experience of going in
to vote like? Who works... who controls it? Who runs it? Ah, that's very interesting. It is run by poll watchers. There's a Democratic poll watcher and Republican
poll watcher and there are a number of poll workers who can be of either p
arty. And when you walk in they ask you what your
last name begins with, what letter. And they have a file card box. They pull your file out. They find you in a big book, which has your
signature in it. And you have to sign a card with a signature
that matches the one they have in the book. And once you've done that and they accept
your signature, then you are assigned to a voting booth. OK, so that's another question. What's a voting booth? Well, here in Philadelphia, a voting booth
is an enclo
sed spaced with a curtain. OK, now the reason why it has curtains on
it is 'cause nobody should see you voting. Is that right? That's correct. When you go in you don't just vote for the
president and vice president, do you. No, you have a whole slate, a slate it's
called, of candidates. It's a list, and also ballot questions. Another question. What's a ballot? And what are ballot questions? A ballot is a vote. Yeah? Exactly. And there are ballot questions such as...? Is it OK for the city to bor
row more money
to pay for new homes for the homeless? OK. Is it... Should marijuana be legalized? Do you want me to answer that question? No, I mean that's... But that has been a ballot
question in lots of states, hasn't it. It has. You can tell us what you think in the comments. Now what about the other people you're voting
for? What different positions are they running
for? They're for United States senator, for our
local congress person, they're for the state attorney general, or the state go
vernor, depending
upon what year the election is taking place. So as well as the sort of national politics
going on there's lots of low level local and state politics going on. You'll have city council members who are
being elected, right here in Philadelphia. There's a long list of candidates. And do you vote with a paper ballot or electronically? Well there are parts of the country where
they still have paper ballots, but around here it's electronic. I select by pressing the touch screen for
e
ach candidate I want, and each ballot question yes or no answer. And when I'm done there's a button that
I press that says 'cast your vote'. To cast your vote. It means to vote basically. Right. And you can also, you'll also hear, 'cast
your ballot'. Because ballot is another word for vote. OK, another question. There are mail-in ballots and absentee ballots. So what are they? And what's the difference? They're ways we can vote without physically
going to the polling station. A mail-in ballot is
a ballot you send by
mail. Is it the same as an absentee ballot? It is exactly the same as an absentee ballot. This year, because of COVID-19, I really don't
want to stand in line at the polling place so I'm going to fill out a mail in ballot. OK. What kind of people normally have absentee
ballots? Well, people who have a legitimate reason
not to be here. They might be traveling. They might be in the military. They might...
They might live abroad. They might live abroad. They might be, um...
Th
ey might be ill too. I was going to say that. That's correct. Or very elderly and unable to get to the polls. And they might be President of the United
States. Donald Trump has voted by mail. True, for years. OK, now there's another kind of ballot -
a provisional ballot. Is that the same thing or different? What do you think? If something's provisional it means it can
be changed in the future. Well, a provisional ballot is something you
fill out if you have gone to a polling place that's not you
rs, that you're not registered
at. So you're registered at the polling place
around the corner, but if you went to the one at the school three blocks away...
Well, then they wouldn't find my name in their book. I would fill out a provisional ballot and
then they would certify that I was registered to vote and count it eventually. Oh right, OK. So it would just take longer to count them,
but your vote would be counted. Eventually. Yes. Does this mean you could you vote twice? Once at the proper p
lace and once at the school? Not a chance! They cross-check. Cross-check means checking one document against
another To make sure it's correct. So they'd know you tried to vote twice. Yes. So no matter what you hear, don't try it. It's a crime and people have gotten jail
sentences for voting twice. OK. Another question: when is the result of an
election announced? Normally we know late at night on election
day. Some votes still need to be counted, but it's
usually clear who the winner is that ni
ght. They say that this year it's going to take
a lot longer to count the votes because a lot more people will be voting by mail. My guess is it will be several weeks before
they have a good idea of who has won the presidential election, which is going to be hard for Americans. They're used to getting the numbers the night
of the election itself. And normally the candidate who has lost calls
the winner and concedes defeat. Although this year they might not want to
do that. To concede defeat mean
s to admit you've lost. OK, another question. When does the candidate that wins take office? Not until January - usually January 20th. And then there's a ceremony which they call...? Do you know? It's the inauguration. And that's where they take an oath. Are you prepared to take the oath, Senator? I am. I, Barack Hussein Obama...
I Barack... Do solemnly swear...
I, Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear... That I will execute the office of President
of the United Stated faithfully. That I'll exe
cute...
The off... Faithfully the office of President of the United States. The office of President of the United States
faithfully. And will to the best of my ability,
And will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the constitution
of the United States. preserve, protect and defend the constitution
of the United States. So help you God. So help me God. Congratulations Mr. President. What was happening there? The wording of the oath is very precise. The Chief Justice of the Sup
reme Court was
probably nervous, and he got the words a little wrong. And that led to Obama messing them up too. They had a private ceremony the next day where
they both did it again and to get it exactly right. We hope this video will help you get words
exactly right too. We've looked at basic election vocabulary
here. But we're expecting a lot of controversy
with this election so we plan to go deeper. We'll look at vocabulary about some of the issues
in another video. So make sure you subscrib
e to our channel
so you don't miss it. And why not share this video with a friend
if you've enjoyed it? Bye-bye now. Bye.
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