How is the US President elected?

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00:00In the United States, the winner of a presidential election is not determined by a national vote,

00:06but through a system called the Electoral College. But what exactly is the Electoral College?

00:13Simply put, it is a group of people appointed by each state to formally appoint the President

00:19and the Vice President of the U.S. And it's a system that has been in place for more than 200

00:25years. Technically, Americans cast votes for electors, not the candidates themselves.

00:33To understand how this process began, we need to look at the U.S. Constitution,

00:37Article 2, Section 1, Clause 2. It specifies how many electors each state is supposed to have.

00:46Since 1964, there have been 538 electors in each presidential election. The number of electors

00:55is equal to the total voting membership of the U.S. Congress, 435 representatives,

01:01plus 100 senators, plus 3 electors from the District of Columbia. The target for the

01:09Republicans and the Democrats to win the presidency is 270 electoral votes, or just

01:16half of the 538 Electoral College votes. So how are electors distributed around the country?

01:25Each state gets a particular number of electors based on its population size. After the census

01:32that takes place every 10 years, the states could gain or lose a few electoral votes. For example,

01:40California has 55 electoral votes. If your candidate wins in California, they get all 55

01:48Electoral College votes, and if your candidate loses, they get none. In short, the winner

01:55takes all. This is why many presidential candidates want to win states with many Electoral

02:02College votes, like Texas, Florida, and New York. If you add up the Electoral College votes of these

02:09three states, you will have 96 votes. Remember, the target is 270. So even if a candidate won

02:19North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and West

02:26Virginia, they would only gain 31 Electoral College votes in total from those eight states.

02:34On the rare occasion, like in 2000 and 2016, a candidate can win the popular vote but fail to

02:42win the required 270 electoral votes. This means that the winner may have won electoral votes by

02:49small margins winning just enough states with just enough electoral votes, but the losing candidate

02:56may have captured large voter margins in the remaining states. If this is the case,

03:02the very large margin secured by the losing candidate in the other states would add up to

03:07over 50 percent of the ballots cast nationally. Therefore, the losing candidate may have gained

03:13more than 50 percent of the ballots cast by voters but fail to gain 270 of the electoral votes.

03:22Some critics of the Electoral College argue that the Electoral College gives an unfair advantage

03:28to states with large numbers of electoral votes. It is possible for a candidate not to get a single

03:34person's vote in 39 states or the District of Columbia, yet be elected president by winning

03:4211 of these 12 states, California, New York, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio,

03:49Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, or Virginia. This is why both parties pay attention

03:57to these states. However, others argue that the Electoral College protects small states

04:04such as Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and even geographically large states with small

04:11populations like Alaska, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. That's because a candidate can't

04:18completely ignore small states because in a close election, every electoral vote counts.

04:26Certain states have a long history of voting for a particular party. These are known as safe

04:32states. For example, in four election cycles in 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008, Democrats could count

04:42on states like Oregon, Maryland, Michigan, and Massachusetts, whereas the Republicans

04:48could count on states like Mississippi, Alabama, Kansas, and Idaho. States that are teetering

04:54between the two parties are called swing states. For example, Ohio and Florida, who have provided

05:01electoral votes for both Democratic and Republican candidates. So when you follow the U.S. elections

05:09this time, remember the process, and also keep in mind that the magic number is 270.

05:24you

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