WHAT MAKES THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM SO UNIQUE?

When structuring the political system of the United States of American, the founding fathers wanted to avoid a political system that in any way reflected the monarchical system of Great Britain and specially avoid a tyranny, and in order to establish a their own political system the US based their principal ideals on John Locke’s self government of the people through popular elections and  Montesquieu’s harmonic cooperation between the branches of power in order to avoid that a branch would accumulate enough power to take over control a establish a tyranny.

In the presidential system of the US the president is both the head of state and the head of government, as well as the military commander in chief and chief diplomat, in other words the president is the head of the military forces and the international relations. Within the executive branch, the president has constitutional powers to manage national affairs. Furthermore the president has the ability to recommend measures to congress and has the right and power to sign or veto a legislation passed by congress, but in the contrary side congress may override a presidential veto if the votes goes by two thirds majority in both houses (congress and senate). Also the president has the power to appoint the ministers of government and with the consent of the senate appoint Supreme Court justices and federal judges.

The president of the United States is elected for a four year term and may serve a maximum of two terms, this was mandated by a constitutional amendment enacted in 1951, following the precedent of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that was elected for a record of four terms but only concluded three because of his dead in 1945.

The biggest difference of the US presidential system and electoral system is that the president is not won directly by the voters but by an electoral college representing each state, for example depending on the population of the state the electoral votes that it gets, in this case California (55), Texas (38) and New York (29) have the largest number of electoral votes. The total of electoral votes is 538; in order to become the president of the US a candidate has to win at least 270 electoral votes. This system of election means that a candidate can win the largest number of popular votes but can lose the elections if the candidate doesn’t win the electoral votes.