It's pretty self-explanatory: every candidate will need votes to win an election. Of course, it's not as easy as it seems when there are so many different types of voters making their own judgments. In many countries, party identification, along with many other factors, plays an important role in winning elections; the United States is no different than this. In electing candidates, however, some countries rely almost exclusively on party affiliation, while the United States allows for more flexibility. In the United States, party identification does not have the greatest influence on a person's vote due to its weakness in the US voting system and other factors that help distinguish the candidate from one's party, such as the candidate's personality, promises/decisions, and their ability to handle current national issues. First of all, party identification should not be too strong in the United States, because the American two-party system allows for “swing voters.” A swing voter is, according to TheFreeDictionary.com, “a voter who has no allegiance to any political party and whose unpredictable decisions can swing the outcome of an election one way or another,” in other words, voters without any commitment to a specific party or candidate. While candidates may rely on “grassroots voters,” or committed voters, for their decisions, the majority of people in the U.S. electoral college are undecided voters. “Swing voters” infer that a majority vote can go either way and makes the outcome harder to predict. Swing voters and grassroots voters come from a variety of sources. Some of the major categories that contrast undecided voters versus rank-and-file voters include income, ethnicity, ideology, geography, education, age, gender, and religion. For this reason, the Party I... is the focus of the newspaper... has problems nationwide. Unlike other countries that vote by party association, the United States allows people to vote independently; they can vote for any party or no party. This “independence” translates into a huge “third party” general where they can lead to unpredictable results in an election. Works cited "Swing Voter". The free dictionary. Farlex and Web. November 26, 2013. .Tannahill, Neal R. Think: American Government. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2012. Print.Timberg, Robert. "The Punk." www.nytimes.com. Touchstone, 1999. Web. 25 November 2013. .Zephyr, David. "Daily Kos." : John McCain: Hero? No, just an aristocratic bully. Np, 2 December 2010. Web. 26 November. 2013. .