US polls 2024: How is the president elected? What is the electoral college?
Here’s a look at a few frequently asked questions about the US elections
Dubai: The 2024 US presidential elections will be held on November 5 to elect the next occupant of the White House.
It’s been a dramatic and divisive race in which former President Donald Trump takes on Vice-President Kamala Harris, who entered the fray only when President Joe Biden decided to step aside.
Most opinion polls say Harris and Trump are completely deadlocked as they offer two starkly contrasting visions to a deeply polarised nation.
With just a week until Election Day, more than 41 million Americans - a huge chunk of an estimated total voting age population of 262 million - have cast early ballots.
President Biden waited patiently in line for 30 minutes on Monday to cast his early ballot.
Here’s a look at everything you wanted to know about the US presidential polls.
Is there a fixed date to hold the US presidential elections?
An election for president of the United States happens every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. This year the presidential election will be held on November 5, 2024.
What are the qualifications of a US presidential candidate?
The US constitution says that the president must:
- Be a natural-born citizen of the United States
- Be at least 35 years old
- Have been a resident of the United States for 14 years
Anyone who meets these requirements can declare their candidacy for president. Once a candidate raises or spends more than $5,000 for their campaign, they must register with the Federal Election Commission.
Who can vote?
Anyone who is a US citizen, meets the state’s residency requirements and is 18 years old on or before Election Day can vote in the polls.
Who are the candidates?
The US has had presidents for more than 230 years, but only the first - George Washington - has ever been elected as an independent candidate.
The Republican and Democratic parties dominate media coverage and campaign donations. Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris will be going head-to-head to become the next president of the US.
There are other candidates running on third party tickets or as independents.
Among them are Chase Oliver from the Libertarian Party, Jill Stein from the Green Party, and independent Cornel West.
What time do polls open and close?
The opening and closing times for polling stations vary from state to state. Some states allow people waiting in the queue when the polling station closes to cast their vote – some do not.
Most polls open at 7am, but some start voting as early as 5am and most stay open till 9pm.
Some states don’t have a uniform statewide start time. In New Hampshire, Tennessee and Washington, polls are open depending on the county or municipality.
When will the winner be sworn in?
The new president is officially sworn in on January 20 at the ‘inauguration’ which takes place on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington DC. The days before this are used as a transition period in which the new leader gets time to appoint ministers and set the government’s agenda.
How is the president elected?
In the United States, the winner of a presidential election is determined not by a popular vote but through a system called the Electoral College, which allots “electoral votes” to all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on their population.
How does the Electoral College work?
There are 538 electoral votes. The number is equal to the total voting membership of the US Congress – 435 representatives plus 100 Senators plus 3 from the District of Columbia. The target to win the presidency is 270 electoral votes, or one more than half the Electoral College votes. In 2016, President Donald Trump lost the national popular vote to Hillary Clinton but secured 304 electoral votes to her 227.
Technically, Americans cast votes for electors, not the candidates themselves. Electors are typically party loyalists who pledge to support the candidate who gets the most votes in their state. Each elector represents one vote in the Electoral College.
How are electors distributed around the country?
Each state gets a particular number of electors based on its population size. For example, California has 54 electoral votes. If a candidate wins in California, he/she gets all 54 Electoral College votes, and if a candidate loses, he/she gets none. In short, the winner takes all.
This is why presidential candidates want to win states with many Electoral College votes. The six states with the most electors are California (54), Texas (40), New York (28), Florida (30), Illinois (19), and Pennsylvania (19).
On the other hand, sparsely populated Alaska, Delaware, Vermont and Wyoming have only three electors each.
All but two states use a winner-take-all approach: The candidate that wins the most votes in that state gets all of its electoral votes. Maine and Nebraska use a more complex district-based allocation system that could result in their combined nine electoral votes being split between Trump and Biden.
On the rare occasion, like in 2000 and 2016, a candidate can win the popular vote, but fail to win the required 270 electoral votes. This means that the winner may have won electoral votes by small margins winning just enough states with just enough electoral votes, but the losing candidate may have captured large voter margins in the remaining states.
So why does the US continue with an electoral college?
The system originated with the US Constitution in 1787, establishing the rules for indirect, single-round presidential elections.
The country's Founding Fathers saw the system as a compromise between direct presidential elections with universal suffrage, and an election by members of Congress - an approach rejected as insufficiently democratic.
Because many states predictably lean Republican or Democratic, presidential candidates focus heavily on the handful of "swing" states on which the election will likely turn - nearly ignoring some large states such as left-leaning California and right-leaning Texas.
Over the years, hundreds of amendments have been proposed to Congress in efforts to modify or abolish the Electoral College. None has succeeded.
Trump's 2016 victory rekindled debate.
What are safe states and swing states?
Certain states have a long history of voting for a particular party. These are known as safe states. For 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.
States that are teetering between the Republican and Democratic parties are called swing or battleground states.
This time, seven swing states are likely to decide the winner – Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada.
Can electors go rogue?
Yes. In 2016, seven of the 538 electors cast ballots for someone other than their state’s popular vote winner, an unusually high number.
Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia have laws intended to control rogue electors, or “faithless electors.” Some provide a financial penalty for a rogue vote, while others call for the vote to be cancelled and the elector replaced.
By when do the electors’ votes have to be certified?
Electors will gather in their state capitals on December 17 and cast votes for president and vice president. US law states they "meet and cast their vote on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December."
On January 6, 2025, Congress will convene to certify the winner.
On January 20, 2025, the new president will be sworn in.
270electoral votes
What if officials in a particular state can’t agree on who won?
Typically, governors certify the results in their respective states and share the information with Congress. But it is possible for “duelling slates of electors,” in which the governor and legislature in a closely contested state could submit two different election results.
The risk of this happening is heightened in states where the legislature is controlled by a different party than the governor.
According to legal experts, it is unclear in this scenario whether Congress should accept the governor’s electoral slate or not count the state’s electoral votes at all.
What if a candidate doesn’t get 270 votes?
One flaw of the Electoral College system is that it could produce a 269-269 tie. If that occurs, a newly elected House of Representatives would decide the fate of the presidency on January 6, with each state’s votes determined by a delegation, as required by the 12th Amendment of the US Constitution.
Will the system ever change?
Critics say the Electoral College thwarts the will of the people.
Calls for abolishing the system increased after George W. Bush won the 2000 election despite losing the popular vote.
The 2000 election resulted in an epic Florida entanglement between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.
Gore won nearly 500,000 more votes nationwide, but when Florida - ultimately following a US Supreme Court intervention - was awarded to Bush, it pushed his Electoral College total to 271 and a hair's-breadth victory.
In 2016 Trump pulled off a similar victory. Trump won 306 electoral votes, well more than the 270 needed.
The extraordinary situation of losing the popular vote but winning the White House was not unprecedented.
Five presidents have risen to the office this way, the first being John Quincy Adams in 1824.
The Electoral College is mandated in the Constitution, so abolishing it would require a constitutional amendment. Such amendments require two-thirds approval from both the House and Senate and ratification by the states, or a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of state legislatures. Republicans, who benefited from the Electoral College in the 2000 and 2016 elections, are unlikely to back such an amendment.
How are ballots counted?
In-person votes are tabulated automatically, and in most cases are ready to announce within hours or even minutes of polls closing. But mailed ballots involve a laborious process and each state again has its own rules. Some states will only count mailed ballots that arrive by Election Day; others will accept them up to 10 days later if they are postmarked by Election Day.
Because of the burden on the Postal Service, some states have lengthened the period they will accept ballots. The process for verifying signatures, opening envelopes, and removing and then counting the ballots differs from state to state.
In Colorado, for example, ballots are opened on receipt. Counting - handled by machine - begins 15 days before the election, but data cannot be revealed until 7:00 pm on Election Day.
If the November 5 election between Trump and Harris is close, many expect legal battles that, like in 2000, could go to the Supreme Court. The 2000 election was decided by a mere 537 vote difference in Florida.
What's the overall vote picture?
In 2016 about 139 million Americans voted, 33 million of them by mail.
According to the US Census Bureau, the 2020 presidential election saw the highest voter turnout of the 21st century with "66.8% of citizens 18 years and older voting."
The Federal Election Commission reported that more than 158 million people voted in the 2020 presidential election.
Roughly 244 million Americans will be eligible to vote in 2024. If we see a turnout like that in 2020, more than 162 million ballots will be cast by November.
How does mail-in voting work?
States allow voters who cannot or do not want to vote in person to cast mail-in or drop off ballots through absentee voting or vote-by-mail programmes. Absentee and mail-in ballots can be cast for both primary and general elections.
Absentee voting
Although most states have absentee voting, deadlines and rules on who can take part vary. Some states require an excuse to vote absentee. Others do not. In most states, you must request an absentee ballot to vote in each election. But in some states, you may qualify to sign up to receive absentee ballots for every election.
Vote-by-mail
Instead of absentee voting programmes, some states offer vote-by-mail (also known as all-mail) programmes. They automatically send ballots to all registered voters in the state before Election Day.
What other elections are held on polling day?
While all the attention will be on Trump and Harris, voters will also be choosing new members of Congress. House members are elected to two-year terms while Senate members are elected for six years.
All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs, along with 34 seats or one-third of the Senate. Thirty-three of those seats are up for regular election, and one is up for a special election.
Of the 34 Senate seats up for election in 2024, Democrats hold 19, Republicans hold 11, and independents hold four.
Republicans hold a slim majority in the House. Currently, Republicans hold 220 seats and Democrats hold 213.