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, conserving in thoughts the facility of the Electoral School: “Does my vote count?”
Native and state officers elected into workplace within the U.S. are in a position to take action by successful the favored vote. Nonetheless, the President of the US is chosen with the assistance of the Electoral School and the favored vote.
In an effort to win the White Home, a candidate should obtain no less than 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 situations in historical past when the 2 have differed. Most not too long ago, 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 wherein the President and Vice President of the US are elected into workplace.
“The Electoral College, as we know it, was created by the 12th Amendment of the Constitution, which was ratified in 1804. Today, there are a total of 538 electoral votes, and a candidate needs at least 270 to win,” Fox Information’ Todd Piro defined on “Fox and Friends” 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 line 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 successful the electoral vote, however dropping 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 line 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 based mostly on state or nationwide celebration guidelines.
Throughout a basic election, voters throughout the states forged their ballots to pick out 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 is no such thing as a federal regulation in place for electors to vote a sure method, penalties, like being disqualified from future ballots, are in place.
Via the years, there have been many calls made to alter 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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“Over the years, there have been hundreds of proposed amendments to change the Electoral College, but only one has gotten remotely close to being passed after the 1968 presidential election saw Richard Nixon win against Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace,” Piro stated. “A 1969 bill to replace the Electoral College with the popular vote passed in the House of Representatives, and though it was endorsed by Nixon, the bill eventually died in the Senate after it was filibustered, and it still stands today.”
Lately, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz known as for the elimination of the Electoral School altogether.
“I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go,” he stated at a California fundraising occasion in October, in line with a pool report on the occasion, Bloomberg reported. “We need a national popular vote, but that’s not the world we live in.”
In an effort to get rid of the system created by the Founding Fathers, a serious constitutional change would must be made.
