How are legislatures eleected in USA?

Answer 1

The Senate has two senators from each State, with Elections held every two years for six year terms---1/3 of all seats in the Senate are up for election each Election year, thus about 2/3 of States will have a Senate seat up for election every election year. Senators are elected from an entire State, and are considered the more senior, collegial, House.

The House of Representatives, where seats are apportioned by States based upon population, has now 435 seats each up for election every two years from equal-sized districts based upon a census which is Constitutionally mandated every ten years, although the size of the House can be changed by an Act of Congress. Each State is guaranteed one seat in the House.

Unfortunately, these districts are "gerrymandered" -- their borders are manipulated by state politicians so that certain political parties and/or incumbents will almost always win, and that the influence of minority parties is diluted either across the districts or concentrated in a relatively few number of districts. Some states, like California, have redistricted to protect incumbency, rather than any one political party. Luckily, these maneuverings tend to even out across State lines, as States are responsible for redistricting and the politics of the individual States are different. The only real restriction to Gerrymandering is that it can not obviously disenfranchise the vote of minorities as stipulated by the Civil Rights Act.

Officially, parties are somewhat weak in elections compared to the rest of the world. Any qualified person may run, but the Democrats and Republicans will generally hold primary elections to nominate a single person and elections are unofficially considered a race between only these two ceandidates. Usually the plurality winner takes the election (although there is almost always a majority winner), but some States like Louisiana which do not follow the same system of party nomination require a runoff when there is not a majority winner.

States' legislatures are generally modeled after the Federal Government although there are slight changes state-to-state.

Elections falling between Presidential Elections are called "midterm elections" and are generally less attended than years when they fall on the same day as Presidential Elections. Also, the victory of incumbents is very strong in the Congress.

Answer 2

Direct election, first through a primary election within the party & then 6 weeks later in the general election.

If they get elected the 1st time, they pretty much have to be discovered " in bed with either a live boy or a dead girl " in order to lose their seat. In the U.S. there is a lot of momentum in the office - part of what is referred to as the power of the incumbancy.