The President of the United States is not elected by a majority at the national level by direct universal suffrage but by an electoral college made up of electors chosen in each State, and in the District of Columbia, in proportion to their population.
Here are some elements on this electoral system before the presidential election on November 5 which will pit former Republican President Donald Trump against current Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris.
What is the electoral college?
When American voters go to the polls for the presidential election, they usually only see the names of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates. However, they vote for a list of electors, who will then in turn elect the president.
There are 538 electoral votes at the national level, which means that a candidate must obtain 270 votes from this college to win. These major voters are generally local executives of political parties who undertake to respect the choice expressed by the population of their state. In 2020, Joe Biden was elected with 306 college votes to 232 for Donald Trump. This system provided for by the Constitution is the result of a compromise between the “founding fathers” of the United States, between supporters of an election of the president by Congress and those favoring a popular vote.
Do states have the same number of electors?
No. Each state has as many electors as representatives and senators in the Federal Congress. Each state has two senators but the distribution of seats in the House of Representatives depends on their demographic weight. California, the most populous state, has 54 electors.
The six least populated states and the District of Columbia have only three electors, the minimum threshold. This means that the vote of a major voter in Wyoming, the least populous state in the United States, represents approximately 192,000 people while that of a major voter in Texas, one of the most underrepresented states in this system represents approximately 730,000. With two exceptions, all states apply the so-called “winner-take-all” rule, according to which the candidate who comes first obtains all the electors. With this rule, the difference in votes makes no difference and the candidates therefore give particular importance during the campaign to the States where the margins are a priori the lowest but are likely to swing the election.
For the November 5 election, these so-called “swing states” are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Can a candidate win without winning a majority of votes?
Yes. Republicans George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016 were both elected president while receiving fewer votes than their opponent nationally. This also happened three times in the 19th century. Critics of this system see it as a major flaw, but its supporters point out that it forces candidates to appeal to a diversity of voters in varied regions of the country rather than just appealing to large urban areas.
When do the electors vote?
The electors meet in their respective states on December 17 to officially vote and send their results to the Federal Congress. The candidate who obtains at least 270 votes is elected president. These votes are officially counted by Congress on January 6 and then the president is inaugurated on January 20.
Has it happened that the electors do not respect the vote of their State?
The meeting of the electors is generally a simple formal procedure which only ratifies a choice known from the day of the vote. In 2016, however, seven of the 538 electors voted in favor of a personality different from that designated by the popular vote, an unusually high figure.
Three of these seven electors had chosen former Secretary of State Colin Powell while their states had voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton. Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia have adopted laws, some of which provide for criminal convictions, to deter voters who are tempted to vote differently from the population, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
What happens in the event of a tie?
The American electoral system can theoretically result in a tie with 269 votes for each of the two candidates. In this case, the newly elected House of Representatives decides between the two candidates on January 6, with each state counting as a single bloc, as provided for in the 12th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Republicans currently control 26 delegations and Democrats 22. Minnesota and North Carolina have the same number of Republican and Democratic representatives.
Can this system evolve?
Congress has been trying to fix flaws that emerged in the 2020 election, which Donald Trump falsely claimed to have won. Federal prosecutors accuse Donald Trump of trying to pressure state election officials to overturn the outcome of the vote.
Congress passed the Electoral Count Reform Act in 2022 to clearly establish that the governor of each state, or any other official specifically designated by the state, must certify the result of the election in his state before transmitting it to Congress . This law also aims to prevent a blockage similar to that of 1876 when three states transmitted two separate lists of electors, one certified by local elected officials and the other by a local official. It also imposes a deadline for the certification of results by giving states 36 days after the vote to put an end to recounts and appeals.
