This report considers contemporary developments in presidential elections. It emphasizes three topics chosen for their recurring importance and notable recent developments: (1) nominating procedures; (2) campaign finance; and (3) the electoral college. The report highlights significant developments in these areas, particularly for the 2008 and 2012 elections. It also provides background information about the presidential election process in general. Other CRS products cited throughout this report provide additional information about the topics introduced here. As the report notes, 2012 was expected to be a noteworthy election cycle for several reasons. Some are extensions of developments that started in 2008 or before, while others are more recent. Key themes discussed in this report include the following: In recent years, the two major political parties have made efforts to control the "front-loading" phenomenon, the tendency for states to vie to be first or among the first to hold caucuses or primary elections to select presidential nominees. As the result of inter-party cooperation following the 2008 election, front-loading was significantly reduced for 2012; Among Republicans, the winner-take-all method that had been widely used was replaced with a proportional system for contests before April 1, although strict proportional allocation was not mandated. With an open race for the Republican nomination, the pace of primaries and caucuses and the new allocation rule were expected to have an unpredictable effect. In the end, the changes prolonged the contest in comparison to recent previous contests; Significant changes in campaign finance law shaped campaign finance in the 2012 election cycle, largely as a result of the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In the aftermath of Citizens United, presidential candidates may face additional pressure to raise funds to be able to compete against their opponents and outside groups, particularly new organizations called "super PACs;" One of the most notable campaign finance developments in recent elections is the decline of the public financing system for presidential candidates. The 2012 cycle marked the first since the public financing program's inception that no major candidate accepted public funds; After decades of congressional inactivity, state-level initiatives to reform the electoral college were actively considered in 2012. Among these were proposals to establish the district system of awarding electoral votes in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and further discussion of the National Popular Vote initiative (NPV). NPV seeks to implement direct popular election of the President and Vice President through an interstate compact, rather than by constitutional Amendment; Various states have considered or are considering changes to their participation in the electoral college. Moreover, a nongovernmental organization, the National Popular Vote (NPV) campaign, has proposed an interstate compact that would achieve direct election without a constitutional amendment.

The satellite industry is driven by the need to reduce costs. One way they have sought to do this is by reducing the size and weight of the satellite because of the extremely high cost per kilogram incurred launching a payload into orbit. The main difficulty in this approach is the lack of power capacity in a small satellite. One of the largest loads on a satellite's power system is the communications system. This has driven the need for a low-power communications system. This document examines a novel method of communicating optically with a low-Earth-orbit satellite from the ground without the need for a laser on the payload. The goal is to show the feasibility of such a system as a solution to the small satellite low-powered communication problem. Specially, that the system described herein: is capable of ground to low-Earth-orbit communications, has very little space-borne mass, and draws little power from the satellite. First, the system (hereafter referred to as LOWCAL "Lightweight Optical Wavelength Communication without A Laser in space") will be explained with details of the formats used and the link budgets. Discussions will be presented on the development of some of the system hardware (the laser diode driver, liquid crystal driver, and decision electronics for both the up and down links.) Finally, experimental test results of the entire system operating in a laboratory environment are presented and compared to theory. The results of the laboratory experiment support the original thesis: retro-modulated optical communications can meet the needs of the small satellite community. The system is capable of 10-kbps communication, has low space-borne mass, and draws little power from the satellite (less than 100-mW measured for the laboratory experiment, less than 1.5-W calculated for the Shuttle experiment).