US President Donald Trump and former US vice president and Democratic nominee Joe Biden Joe Biden.
The United States is set to elect its 46th president as the nation goes to vote on November 3 with Donald Trump seeking reelection for a second term. Former vice president and Delaware senator Joe Biden has been nominated as the Democratic presidential nominee.
In the US presidential elections, there is a system of deciding the winner called the electoral college. The electoral college does not exist for any other elections in the US where the winner is decided on the basis of popular votes. There are 538 electors in the electoral college and to win, a candidate needs 270 votes.
The process
In the US general elections, voters vote for their candidate but primarily they vote for their candidate’s choice of electors, who are also known as slates. Each state has a number of electors. The number of electors is decided by the number of congressional districts the states have along with the number of members it has in the US House of Senate. For example, Minnesota gets 10 electoral votes as it has two members in the US House of Senate and eight congressional districts.
After the general elections are over, the governor of a particular state prepares a Certificate of Ascertainment which consists of the names of all the individuals on the slates for each candidate. This certificate also shows the number of votes each individual has received and shows who is appointed as a state’s electors.
These electors meet on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December after the general election. The meetings are generally held in the respective states of the electors where separate ballots are set up and the electors vote for the president and the vice president.
Several states have a ‘winner takes all’ policy where the state awards the electors to the candidate who won the mandate in the state due to different set of rules of the states even though the Constitution allows electors to not follow their state’s popular vote.
The votes are then sent to the US Congress for counting and to the National Archives and Records Administration for keeping records of the election. The US Congress convenes on January 6 following the year of the election where members of the US house of representatives and senate conduct the official counting of the electoral votes. The vice president dons the role of the president of the Senate counts the vote and announces the result. The president of the senate then declares the president-elect and the vice president-elect of US elections.
What happens if either candidate fails to secure 270 votes?
The presidential election moves from the electoral college to the US Congress if either of candidates fail to secure the 270 votes. The House of Representatives will then elect the president from the three presidential candidates who have acquired the most number of votes. State delegations are allotted one vote per state and the states can determine how they want to vote.
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The presidential candidate must receive 26 votes (a majority of states) to be elected the president of the US.
The election of the two vice presidential candidates is conducted by the House of Senate. Each senator casts one vote for the vice president. The candidate has to acquire 51 votes (the majority of senators) to be elected. The vice president-elect serves as the president of the United States if the House of Representatives is unable to elect a president by the day of inauguration and until the deadlock is resolved in the US House of Representatives.
