1 Answer

Lusaka

Zambia, Capitala

   The 2012 United States presidential election is scheduled to be held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. It will be the 57th quadrennial presidential election in which presidential electors, who will officially elect the president and the vice president of the United States on December 17, 2012, will be chosen. The exception to this being a 269-269 tie amongst the electoral votes, in which case the United States House of Representatives will choose the President, and the United States Senate will choose the Vice President. Incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama and Democratic Vice-President Joe Biden are running for a second term during this election, the former being constitutionally limited to only two terms.[1] Their major challengers are the Republican Party nominee Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and his running mate vice-presidential candidate Congressman Paul Ryan.

Four other candidates are mathematically eligible to win the election by a majority of the electoral college: former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee;[2] and Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee, have attained ballot access sufficient to qualify for enough electoral votes to mathematically win the presidency.[3] Virgil Goode, the Constitution Party nominee, and Rocky Anderson, the Justice Party nominee, have the combined ballot access and write-in status in enough states to reach 270 electoral votes, the minimum number needed to win the election.[4] These four minor party candidates are widely regarded as having no chance of winning the election, though they are seen by political pundits as potential spoilers for Romney and/or Obama.[5]

As specified in the Constitution, the 2012 presidential election will coincide with the United States Senate elections where one-third of the Senators will face re-election (33 Class I seats), and the United States House of Representatives elections (which occurs biennially) to elect the members for the 113th Congress. Eleven gubernatorial elections and many elections for state legislatures will also take place at the same time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012