Trump once won by 3 million votes less. How the US Electoral College works

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Also this year, when former Vice President Joe Biden faced Trump’s election, much attention was paid to these, in some cases, outdated features of the US electoral system.

Below is an overview of how this system works.

538 The members of the Electoral College meet every four years in the capitals of their states to declare the winner of the presidential election.

To win the battle for the White House, a candidate must win at least 270 electoral votes.

This system is defined in the constitution adopted in 1787, which provides for the election of a president by indirect, single-election.

In such a solution, the “founding fathers” of the United States saw a compromise between direct universal suffrage and the election of a president to Congress, which was rejected as insufficiently democratic.

Since then, hundreds of amendments have been tabled in Congress in an effort to abandon or reform the College of Electors, but none has succeeded.

The debate on changing the system with renewed vigor resumed after the unexpected victory of Trump in 2016, and if the outcome of the elections is questionable again this time, the issue of the Electoral College will definitely be focused again.

Most of the 538 electorates are local elected officials and party functionaries, but their names do not appear on ballot papers and are generally little known to voters.

Each state has as many electors as it has representatives in Congress. The number of members of the House of Representatives for each state is determined by its population, and each state is represented in the Senate by two senators.

California, for example, has 55 electors, Texas 38, and sparsely populated Alaska, Delaware, Vermont and Wyoming, only three each.

The Constitution leaves the right to determine how its electorate votes to each state, but in all states except Nebraska and Menu, in theory, all electorates vote for the candidate who wins in that state.

In November 2016, Trump won 306 electoral votes. It prompted millions of Americans to sign a petition calling on Republican electorates to block his entry into the White House.

The effort was almost in vain, as only two electors in Texas switched to the opposing side, resulting in Trumps being elected with 304 votes.

Republicans have condemned the campaign, saying it was a desperate move by activists who refused to acknowledge their defeat.

However, the situation in 2016 was not unique. In total, the five presidents took office without a majority in the referendum.

The first of these in 1824 was John Queens Adams, and the last before Trump was George W. Bush, who defeated Democrat Al Gore in 2000 after a protracted transfer of votes to Florida.

In total, Gors won nearly 500,000 more votes nationwide, but after the Bush victory in Florida was recognized, he also became the winner of the entire election, gaining 271 electoral votes.

There is no provision in the Constitution that would force electorate to vote one way or another. If one of the states also forces them to take into account the citizens’ vote, which is not usually the case, then “unfaithful voters” face only a fine.

However, in July 2000, the Supreme Court recognized that states had the right to impose penalties on disloyal voters, requiring them to vote in accordance with the will of voters in the state.

Between 1796 and 2016, a total of 180 electors voted against the candidate for president or vice president who won the state.

But so far, “distrustful electorates” have never settled the US presidential election.

The law stipulates that the vote of the electoral college must take place on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.

Thus, this year it is planned that the electorate will gather in the capitals of their states on December 14 to vote for the winner of this year’s presidential election.

The winner will be confirmed by Congress on January 6 next year, but the new president will take the oath of office on January 20.