Unlike many other countries, where the president or prime minister is chosen by direct popular vote, in the United States a candidate can win the popular vote without being elected by ballot. the highest office in the country. The United States also differs from most other democracies in that it does not have an independent election commission to certify the final vote count.
So who actually confirms the winner?
Step 1: Before Election Day
American democracy has many elected officials – state, local and national – and many processes for gaining power.
I’ve been working on election campaigns since I was 8 years old, when my dad ran for office and I went door to door asking people to vote for him. I have also worked on local, congressional, senate and presidential elections and now lead a university research center on politics.
What’s striking is that every race is different, from the deadlines and filing process to certification. Here I will focus on the presidential race.
The unusual and complicated process of certifying the presidential election in the United States involves all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the National Archives and the Office of the Federal Register. This also involves the Electoral College – a uniquely American institution that meets in 51 different locations once every four years to choose the president.
UpstateNYer via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
This months-long process was designed as a compromise by the Founding Fathers, who did not believe the American people. should directly choose the president and vice president but he also did not want to give Congress the power of selection.
The Constitution states that U.S. presidential elections are held on the first Tuesday in November every four years. But the federal election process actually begins in October, when the Archivist of the United States – a person appointed by the president and responsible for maintaining the government’s most important official documents – sends a letter to the governor of each state.
The document outlines their responsibilities regarding the Electoral College, which is not a place but a process by which voters – the people who are chosen by their party – vote for their party’s presidential candidate.
THE the workings of the Electoral College are complicatedbut in short, Americans vote for electors and electors vote for president. Then the winner is declared – right?
Learn more:
How is the American president elected?
Step 2: After Election Day
Not quite.
Once the final count of in-person, absentee and provisional ballots is complete, the 50 governors prepare for their state’s runoffs. Verification certificatea document listing their voters for the candidates running.
Each state completes this process at its own pace. This year, because of everything lawsuits challenging 2020 election resultsThere is new procedures in place to expedite challenges to a state’s certificate of verification by an aggrieved applicant. Once completed, copies of the verification certificate are submitted to the U.S. Archivist.
After the governor submits the names to the archivist, each state’s Electoral College electors meet in the state capital — D.C. meets in Washington — to formally vote for president and vice president the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December. This year it is December 17, 2024.
In a manner that varies from state to state, voters in each state prepare six certificates of vote. One of them is sent by registered mail to the President of the United States Senate and another to the Archivist of the United States. The remaining four certificates are sent to state officials.
This fulfills the functions of the Electoral College until the next presidential election.
Joe Amon/The Denver Post via Getty Images
Step 3: Congress meets
On January 6, Congress meets to count electoral votes and certify the winner of the election.
Since the sitting vice president is also president of the Senate, Kamala Harris will preside over this count in 2025, just as Vice President Mike Pence did in January 2021 when Joe Biden officially became president-elect. Each state, called in alphabetical order, cast their votes.
This process is normally ceremonial, as by January the media have declared the winner and usually a concession speech has been made. But officially, this is the moment of truth.
On January 6, 2021, an armed pro-Trump crowd stormed the Capitol to try to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory. Both houses of Congress were evacuated during the attack. five people were killed.
Lawmakers reconvened a few hours later. It is the job of the vice president to announce the results and ask if there are any objections. After the violent attack on the Capitol, most Senate Republicans abandoned plans to challenge Biden’s 2021 victory, but six have always opposed it.
The objections are not without precedent. In 2001, House Democrats I tried to block for 20 minutes Hotly contested electoral votes in Florida for George W. Bush.
Both of these efforts failed because objections had to be signed by both a member of the House and Senate before being accepted. voted by both houses of Congress. Accommodation challenges have become more difficult following the passage of legislation in 2022. Now, 20 senators and 87 members of the House must support any challenge to the certification of a state’s electoral college results.
In 2021, it fell to Pence, as Senate President, to declare Biden – not Trump – the next president of the United States. He fulfilled his constitutional duty despite immense pressure from Trump to overthrow democracy.
After the Senate certifies the election results, all audit certificates and voting certificates are made available for public inspection in the Office of the Federal Registrar for one year, then transferred to the National Archives for permanent record.
In other words, those who question the outcome of a US election can double-check the charts themselves.
What happens in the event of a tie?
In the extraordinary event that no candidate wins the Electoral College, the The House of Representatives meets to elect the next president. This is how John Quincy Adams became president in 1824.
Created almost 250 years ago, this a complex process is a foundation of American democracy. Many wonder if this the outdated system truly represents the will of the people in modern America.
But for 2024, with a few adjustments, there remains the process that will decide the presidential race.
This article was originally published during the 2020 presidential election. It was updated on November 1, 2024.
