Hello everyone and welcome to America under the Microscope Advance episode.

Hi, Lulu.

Hi, James. So let's continue with the talk about election.

Oh no.

First of all, obviously it's something that everyone in America is talking about.

Yeah, you can't avoid it because it's on everything. So right now since we're in the last month before the election, campaigning is gone into overdrive. But honestly they've been campaigning for months now probably since the beginning of the year.

Since it is one of the most important things basically in the political life in America, when do people learn about these things? Because it sounds really complex. Do kids learn these kind of things at the basic knowledge in school?

Yeah, so election and government is part of social studies in history classes in schools. So starting in elementary school, we do start learning about how this works. But kids also learn about it just through TV because there are so many attack ads. So it's not uncommon for little kids to ask their parents like “who's Trump? or Who's Biden?”

Actually I watched on a YouTube video of some kids getting interviewed. They just pulled some random kids, like really young kids, on the street and saying that what's your impression of the candidates. They actually can impersonate these candidates.

Yes, they are on TV so much. It's really easy to see. They're in the news. They have commercials, the posters and they are in the radio. They're just… it's pervasive. It is everywhere.

Let's say, a candidate decides to run for president. First of all, will he form a team?

So, right, there'll be a campaign team that will help them strategize and how they should advertise, how they should get their message across. So this is done with most commonly now is TV ads whether it's through internet TV services like YouTube or if it's just on regular broadcast TV.

Forgive me for saying this, but it almost sounds like they're trying to debut some sort of rock band. It's like to package them and put them on TV.

That's not actually that far from the truth. So they have these ads and there are two kinds: There are just ads about the candidate in what they'll do, and then we also have attack ads which are directly attacking their opponents. Because like this person did this, this person did this, if you vote for this person, bad things will happen type.

And that is totally OK right?

It’s totally OK as long as you're not lying.

OK.

You can't lie. But you can omit or you can twist the truth as long as it's not a lie and you can always imply things because I can just like “I didn't say that.”

So basically the gray area.

Yeah.

And all these different types of media, for example, TV stations, they also have obviously their own preferences.

Well, yeah, they do, but officially they're not supposed to.

They're not supposed to but maybe they're still…

They will edge out.

And what else apart from showing ads, they also have to be …

There will be rallies and events. But one of the big things is because running for president is really expensive.

It does sound like it's very expensive if you have to have TV ads running all the time.

Exactly what I say, you need transportation costs, you need to pay for your staff, the whole election budget thing is public information.They have to record everything, say where they spend it and it's monitored. So they have to do a lot of fundraisers.

I'm sure someone thought of it before it. Has anyone thought that this is like a huge waste of money?

Yeah, most Americans think that, actually.

Especially if they are other things that really require money. And then with all these TV ads...

They're not getting money from taxes. So, you as a private citizen can donate to them. That's perfect fine.There are ways that businesses can donate to candidates as well. So they get it through donations and that is monitored and watched.

Sometimes I've seen this in TV shows and movies.You said private citizens like even if you're not attached to any party's organizations, you can say I really like candidate A, and I want to hold a private fundraiser to raise money, so I can donate to his campaign team.

Correct.

And then I can basically just call everyone I know and say“All right,I'm going to...”

I'm gonna have a steak dinner, in order to eat this steak dinner you need to pay a thousand dollars per plate. Money will go to the candidates reelection or candidates election campaign.Yeah, that happens. So you'll see like business people hold these fundraiser campaigns or you'll see celebrities hold these fundraiser dinners and stuff in order to make money, raise money for the candidates. But everything needs to be above board and reported to the election commission to make sure that it's not a bribe.

And then they also have debates, they just had…

Yes, they just had the debate this year. I'm sure a lot of people have watched it.There are supposed to be three more debates, although this year of 2020, there may or may not be more debates because of the situation around the world. We don't know, but usually there are four debates, three presidential, one vice president.

On different issues or?

They change. Usually they will be whatever the main issues are. Okay, ones that are always come up, economics, always show up because there's always economic issues...

And it's something that everyone cares about.

Other ones that are common like health care or government funding or things like that.Those are pretty common issues.They show up a lot. And there's also like current issues.

Yeah. And you mentioned rallies. So this would be the candidate goes around to meet with supporters?

They'll go and meet supporters, they will go and give speeches. If you know the current president of the United States, Donald Trump is a big fan of these rallies, he likes to go out there, he gives speeches. He kind of likes the rock star atmosphere of it.

Yeah.

But other candidates do rallies as well. If it wasn't for the current situation we're in this year, there would be much more rallies.

Is it like a rule or is it just like a basic thing that these candidates do? Do they need like a really powerful sound bite like a slogan?

It helps, because a lot of Americans, I think, don't really have an attention span to really go into the nitty gritty of the actual things that are talking about. Everything does get kind of boil down to sound bites.

They do get on these TV ads as well, over and over and over again.

Oh yes. Oh yes.

And something I've noticed is that people are quite open sometimes about who they support.They would have all these paraphernalias, I support...

Oh yes, it is, especially right now. It's not uncommon to go around people's front yards will have posters for whichever person they're supporting, there are clothing, stickers, buttons, hats, all in support of the candidate they're going to vote for. Now not all Americans do this. Actually a good number of them don't, but there is a sizable portion that will openly advertise.

But would that get you into potential trouble or like arguments? For example, if this neighborhood generally leans towards one candidate, but you want to vote for the other candidate and you're very,very open about it?

Absolutely. They're having cases of people stealing these signs out of people's yards, vandalizing their homes because they're another party. Now this is a crime they get reported to police and stealing someone's advertising sign for the party or candidate is theft, and you will go to jail.

When I teach students, we always talk about small talk topics or taboo topics, and political views always is considered one of those taboo topics.

Very much so.

It is not okay even though people are really open about it, but it's not okay even during these times to go to American and just say like who are you gonna vote for?

No, you would not do that. Don't do that. Because who we vote for is our own personal opinion. If they, if an American openly states, yes sure you can talk about it, but we would not directly ask someone.

If you don't know, but if they have the sticker like I vote for who and who then...

Then this is like you're voting for so and so, it's like why are you voting for so and so? Yes, that's fine, because you're openly advertising it on your chest.

But it is a topic that people do talk about?

Constantly. I talked to my parents about it now.

That's your family, but what about you and your friends back home? This is where I don't ...

We do, but mostly...Between me and my friends, we mostly talk about the ridiculousness of everything. It's like why is it? It's like a circus. Me and my friends mostly we wish there was a simpler actually kind of more boring election and campaign process because I personally think it's too showy, way too much money. I wish there was a better way.

Probably more efficient way of doing it.

That would be better.

But say if you meet up with someone you don't really know that, but this is an American, would you guys talk about the election? If so, how would you go about it? Like you shouldn't really ask each other who do you vote for because that is personal. But how will the conversation go?

It probably wouldn't.

So you simply wouldn't mention it.

We wouldn't talk about it especially for someone I don't know, because again, it can lead to argument and confrontation.We would just talk about other topics that are fine. So we avoid it.

Now let's look at some of the problems with this whole election or election day. First of all, it seems like definitely not everyone votes.

You don't have to vote. I mean, there's no law that requires you to vote.You have the right to vote, but not the obligation to vote.

And people are not voting because they're not interested or?

Reasons why people don't vote, there's… yes apathy is one, they just don't care. It's like I don't care that's all the same I'm not gonna vote. That's not true. It does matter. Secondly, another reason is because the election day isn't a holiday, so some people who really need to work and make money, they can't take the time off from work to go vote. Even though legally a company must give you time off, they can't say no because it's a civic duty, but they don't have to pay you for it and some people need the money.

But I thought you have a long period where you can vote, it’s not just like...

If I remember in the basic of it, so it says, it depends from state to state, that's gonna come up again.

So some states would actually only give you a very short period of time to vote like on that day?

Yeah, some states you only vote on that day.

Does it make any sense if you don't have enough human resources to really manage...

You have to realize that doing it this way, depending on the political party controlling who can vote can greatly affect who wins.

Smart. So that's like a tactic.

It is a tactic.

I see.

It's a dirty tactic. But it is a tactic that is used. That's why in some states they make it harder to vote, some states make it easier to vote.

Sounds like this mail-in votes is a bit problematic. It's like there are a lot of restrictions at what is counted as a valid mail-in vote.

This hasn't actually been an issue before. They're just making it seem to be an issue now and personally. So, right. The mail-in ballots, the problem is right now is mostly there's gonna be way more than normal due to the outbreak.

Yeah.

So they'll be a larger volume which will take more work to get through. That's gonna take a lot of man hours which is gonna be troublesome. Yes, there are times that signature doesn't match what's on file, the vote will not be counted; if there's a mistake on the ballot, it will no be counted; if there's in some places you need a witness signature on your ballot, you need two signatures. So if it's missing something, it won't be counted. So in the past, this is usually a very small number. Although this year due to the larger volume, this might turn into an issue.

You mentioned counting. This is a question I would like to ask. Who counts those votes, it's counted manually?

By machine. They will do a manual if the vote is really close. So like if it's within a few, I don't remember the number, but if it's a really small margin, they will recount by hand. You've all probably taken those multiple choice test sheet papers. They just feed it through a machine. Yeah, it's the same kind of thing. So they just feed it through machine and scans it.

Yeah. But if I remember correctly, if I sort of dot the choice in the exact right way...

It will reject it. Yeah, that does happen. So people don't fill out the ballot properly. So in this case, yes, people need to make sure that they actually fill out the ballot correctly.

And those votes won't be counted. They won't count?

The machine can't read them. No, they usually will get counted because that the machine will reject them. Then there will be someone who will check to see…

I see.

But again, if there's too many, there are limited people, there's too many ballots.

Ok.

This year is just extra bad because of the outbreak which makes everything harder.

The staff members, there are civil servants...

They are volunteers.

Oh, wow. And do you get paid doing all this?

Some people are paid, some people are not. If you're getting paid, you're not a volunteer.

Okay. Because I'm thinking you need massive amount of human resources.

You do.

Man every polling station to do all of these countings and...

But a lot of poll workers are volunteers. So polling stations are a nonpartisan, there can be no political advertisement anywhere near a polling station. No matter who you are, you voted at this place.

And the volunteers are definitely not allowed to influence.

No, that will be bad. They're supposed to… At a polling station, they help you register. They will help you with the ballot if you need assistance, like...

Like if you're not sure what to do...

Like if you don't know how to do it or if you're disabled, like if you're a disabled person like you're paralyzed, you can't move, they will help you vote. Because you can still vote. But obviously, if you can't use your hand, you need somebody to help you with that and they will help you.

I see. Okay, so I think we're gonna wrap up today's episode and thank you so much for coming to the studio and then telling us all about the whole voting the election system.

It's nice to be back. This is fun.

All right, hopefully we'll do more episodes about other aspects of life in America .

Hopefully one that is far less complicated.

Exactly. So thank you very much, James. See you next time.

Bye bye everyone.

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