On November 5, American voters will go to the polls to choose their president for the next four years. But unlike France, the American system is indirect. Voters do not nominate a person but rather the political affiliation of voters in their state. These voters form the Electoral College responsible for officially designating the head of the federal state. This “second presidential election” will be held on December 17.
In almost all states (48 out of 50, plus the District of Columbia, which is not a state but is represented in the Electoral College), when a candidate obtains a majority, he or she “wins” all the electors. This means that with 50% of the votes plus one, the winning candidate sends all the voters in his favor to the Electoral College. This is called the winner-takes-all rule.
Who can be a voter?
Article II, section 1 of the U.S. Constitution states that the president and vice president are chosen by the voters “in such manner as their Legislature may direct,” but without advising or enumerating any manner. However, the article states that “no senator, representative, or person holding any office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.” In practice, voters are often personalities who have provided service to the party or the candidate: party members, lobbyists, local elected officials or even retired political staff. Bill Clinton, in 2016, was the elector of his wife, Hillary Clinton.
Basically, before the actual elections, each party names potential electors in each state.
How many voters are there?
There are 538 electors in the Electoral College, so you need the support of 270 of them to win the presidential election. States have the same number of electors as their number of members in Congress. The number of voters is therefore proportional to the population of each state, with a minimum of three voters. This method of calculation leads to a slight over-representation of sparsely populated states, such as Alaska, Wyoming and Vermont, which respectively have three voters for 733,536, 586,485 and 647,818 inhabitants. This means they have more than four voters per million inhabitants. In contrast, the majority of states average one or two voters per million residents.
Following a population census, the distribution of voters changed slightly for 2024: California lost one, as did Montana, North Carolina and New York, while Texas gained two. Additionally, the influence of Florida and Colorado gained one vote.
The political balance in most states virtually guarantees victory for one side or the other (California, Colorado, and New York have historically voted Democratic, while Alaska, Idaho, and Alabama went Republican). Candidates visit these states less often, because victory is either a foregone conclusion or nearly impossible.
Is a voter obliged to respect the vote of his state?
Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia have laws requiring voters to follow the popular vote. in order to avoid a “faithless voter” situation. These laws may impose sanctions such as $500 fine and vote cancellation in states like North Carolinaor the appointment of a alternate voter in states like Montana, Nevada and Washington.
Since electors are appointed by parties or candidates, cases where electors do not vote as expected are rare, but there have been a few cases. For example, in the 2000 election, Democratic voter Barbara Lett-Simmons abstained from voting rather than voting for Al Gore. This incident did not affect the outcome of the elections, since Republican George W. Bush won with 271 votes out of 538.
Is it possible to win in terms of the number of votes and have a minority of voters?
The US presidential election is an indirect election, so it is possible to win the largest share of the national vote (the popular vote), but not the majority of voters in the Electoral College.
In the history of the United States, it happened five timesincluding twice on the 21stst century: in 2000, Democrat Al Gore received 543,895 more votes as Republican George W. Bush and in 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton received 2.86 million more votes than Republican Donald Trump.
