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 but through a system called the Electoral College.
00:09But what exactly is the Electoral College?
00:13Simply put, it is a group of people appointed by each state to formally appoint the President and the Vice President of the U.S.
00:22And it's a system that has been in place for more than 200 years.
00:27Technically, 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, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 2.
00:41It specifies how many electors each state is supposed to have.
00:46Since 1964, there have been 538 electors in each presidential election.
00:54The number of electors is equal to the total voting membership of the U.S. Congress, 435 representatives, plus 100 senators, plus 3 electors from the District of Columbia.
01:08The target for the Republicans and the Democrats to win the presidency is 270 electoral votes, or just half of the 538 Electoral College votes.
01:21So how are electors distributed around the country?
01:25Each state gets a particular number of electors based on its population size.
01:31After the census that takes place every 10 years, the states could gain or lose a few electoral votes.
01:39For example, California has 55 electoral votes.
01:44If your candidate wins in California, they get all 55 Electoral College votes, and if your candidate loses, they get none.
01:53In short, the winner takes all.
01:56This is why many presidential candidates want to win states with many Electoral College votes, like Texas, Florida, and New York.
02:06If you add up the Electoral College votes of these three states, you will have 96 votes.
02:13Remember, the target is 270.
02:17So even if a candidate won North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and West Virginia, 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 win the required 270 electoral votes.
02:46This means that the winner may have won electoral votes by small margins winning just enough states with just enough electoral votes,
02:55but the losing candidate may have captured large voter margins in the remaining states.
03:01If this is the case, the very large margins secured by the losing candidate in the other states would add up to over 50% of the ballots cast nationally.
03:11Therefore, the losing candidate may have gained more than 50% of the ballots cast by voters but failed to gain 270 of the electoral votes.
03:22Some critics of the Electoral College argue that the Electoral College gives an unfair advantage to states with large numbers of electoral votes.
03:32It is possible for a candidate not to get a single person's vote in 39 states or the District of Columbia,
03:39yet be elected President by winning 11 of these 12 states – California, New York, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, or Virginia.
03:54This is why both parties pay attention to these states.
03:59However, others argue that the Electoral College protects small states such as Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and even geographically large states with small populations like Alaska, Wyoming, and the Dakotas.
04:16That's because a candidate can't completely 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 states.
04:33For example, in four election cycles in 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008, Democrats could count on states like Oregon, Maryland, Michigan, and Massachusetts, whereas the Republicans could count on states like Mississippi, Alabama, Kansas, and Idaho.
04:53States that are teetering between the two parties are called swing states, for example, Ohio and Florida, who have provided electoral votes for both Democratic and Republican candidates.
05:07So when you follow the U.S. elections this time, remember the process. And also keep in mind that the magic number is 270.
05:23For more UN videos visit www.un.org