1. Election 2008: To Vote or Not to Vote

2. Election History

3. The 1st Democracies
Ancient Greece had one of the earliest forms of democracy, since at least 508 BC. Each year, the Greeks had a negative election -- voters were asked to cast a vote for the politician they most wanted to exile for ten years.

4. By the 13th Century in Venice
They elected a Great Council of 40 members .
Venetians introduced "approval voting":
Electors cast one vote for every candidate they find acceptable and
None for those whom they deem unacceptable.
The winner is the person who is acceptable to the largest number of voters

5. Voting in America is a story of ever-increasing voting rights.
The rules for eligibility have changed substantially since America's founding, and continue to change today.

6. The Rules!
When America was young, only white males over the age of 21 were allowed to vote. Some of the landmark changes since then are:

7. Black Suffrage or right to vote
The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution were passed following the Civil War, in the later 1860s.
They outlawed slavery and extended civil rights and suffrage (voting rights) to former slaves. The LEGAL right to vote for African-Americans was established,

8. Black Suffrage or right to vote
but
numerous restrictions kept many blacks from ACTUALLY voting until the 1960s Voting Rights Act

9. Woman’s Suffrage
The 19th Amendment gave American women the right to vote in 1920.
Women still lacked the right to vote in Switzerland until the 1970s, and as of 1990 women could not vote in Kuwait.

10. Presidential Election 2008
Who is allowed to vote in a presidential election in the United States of America?

11. Current Issues
Thanks to a movement led by differently-abled Americans and their supporters, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was passed.
It provided for ballot and poll access for those with disabilities. Enforcement of the Voting Rights Act and other laws continued.

12. More Current Issues
After the 2000 election, the nation was confronted with over a million ballots never being counted, and numerous allegations of fraud in Florida and elsewhere.
The courts forced the recount in Florida to stop, and it was only months later (right after the September 11 attacks, so few were listening)that recounters hired by major news organizations found that if all the valid, machine-rejected votes had been counted, the man occupying the White House would have lost the election

13. Election 2008
Election Day occurs on the Tuesday following the first Monday of November every year.
Election Day is Tuesday, November 04, 2008 this year.

14. US Presidential Election
The 2008 Presidential Election process began in January, with state primaries.

15. John McCain emerged as the Republican nominee, and

16. Barack Obama won for the Democrats.

17. New President of the USA
The General Election will be November 4, 2008.
How many will vote?
Who will be elected?