Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have spent months touring the nation on the 2024 presidential election marketing campaign path, vying for America’s vote to maneuver into the White Home.
With each new presidential election cycle, U.S. residents ask themselves the identical query, holding in thoughts the ability of the Electoral School: “Does my vote rely?”
Native and state officers elected into workplace within the U.S. are ready to take action by profitable the favored vote. Nonetheless, the President of america is chosen with the assistance of the Electoral School and the favored vote.
With the intention to win the White Home, a candidate should obtain at the very least 270 electoral votes. (Soeren Stache/image alliance through Getty Pictures)
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Most frequently, the favored vote and the electoral vote mirror one another, however there are few cases in historical past when the 2 have differed. Most just lately, in 2016, Trump received the Electoral School however misplaced the favored vote to Hillary Clinton.
What’s the Electoral School?
The Electoral School is the formal course of by which the President and Vice President of america are elected into workplace.
“The Electoral School, as we all know it, was created by the twelfth Modification of the Structure, which was ratified in 1804. Right this moment, there are a complete of 538 electoral votes, and a candidate wants at the very least 270 to win,” Fox Information’ Todd Piro defined on “Fox and Mates” in November 2020.
Within the Electoral School, Washington D.C. has its personal three electors.
In 48 states, plus Washington D.C., the winner of the favored vote will get all of the electoral votes for that state, in keeping with USA.gov. That is other than Maine and Nebraska, the place a proportional system is used, per the supply.
In 2016, Donald Trump was elected president after profitable the electoral vote, however shedding the favored vote to his democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP through Getty Pictures)
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How does the Electoral School work?
Whereas the favored vote takes place in November, the electoral vote would not happen till a couple of month later, in mid-December.
Who’s chosen as a state’s electors, how they’re chosen and when they’re picked range state-by-state, however there’s a two-part system in place, in keeping with the Nationwide Archive’s web site.
Slates of electors are chosen at state celebration conventions, or they’re voted on by the celebration’s central committee primarily based on state or nationwide celebration guidelines.
Throughout a basic election, voters throughout the states forged their ballots to pick their electors who will symbolize their decesion within the presidential election. The names of electors might or might not seem on the ballots.
Electors pledge to vote for particular candidates, although they aren’t legally obligated to take action. Whereas there isn’t a federal regulation in place for electors to vote a sure method, penalties, like being disqualified from future ballots, are in place.
By means of the years, there have been many calls made to vary the Electoral School as we all know it.
Vice chairman Kamala Harris grew to become the presidential nominee for the Democratic Social gathering after Joe Biden dropped out of the race. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Pictures)
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“Through the years, there have been lots of of proposed amendments to vary the Electoral School, however just one has gotten remotely near being handed after the 1968 presidential election noticed Richard Nixon win in opposition to Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace,” Piro stated. “A 1969 invoice to switch the Electoral School with the favored vote handed within the Home of Representatives, and although it was endorsed by Nixon, the invoice ultimately died within the Senate after it was filibustered, and it nonetheless stands at present.”
Lately, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz known as for the elimination of the Electoral School altogether.
“I feel all of us know the Electoral School must go,” he stated at a California fundraising occasion in October, in keeping with a pool report on the occasion, Bloomberg reported. “We want a nationwide standard vote, however that is not the world we dwell in.”
With the intention to dispose of the system created by the Founding Fathers, a serious constitutional change would should be made.
