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What is the Electoral College?
— Yahoo News Australia (@YahooNewsAU) November 3, 2020
The Electoral College (EC) is the group of people that elect the United States President and Vice President. When Americans go to the polls, they’re not directly voting for the candidates, but for ‘electors’.
How many Electoral College votes does each state get?
— Yahoo News Australia (@YahooNewsAU) November 3, 2020
To reflect its population size, the number of EC votes a state has is equal to the number of seats it has in the US Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate). So a minimum of three and a maximum of 55.
According to @NCSLorg: “When voters in each state go to the polls, they’re selecting their presidential electors. The names of electors are not on the ballot in most states. Rather, when a voter casts a vote for a presidential candidate…” pic.twitter.com/IfjPaoUntB
— Yahoo News Australia (@YahooNewsAU) November 3, 2020
A “faithless elector” is an elector who votes against their state’s popular vote. In 15 of the 50 states, votes from faithless electors are removed, penalised, or cancelled, but elsewhere, there’s no punishment. Faithless electors have never changed the result of an election.
— Yahoo News Australia (@YahooNewsAU) November 3, 2020
How does a candidate win EC votes?
— Yahoo News Australia (@YahooNewsAU) November 3, 2020
If a candidate wins the popular vote they are awarded all of the state’s EC votes. This is the case in all but two states and it’s why swing states are so important: they may only be won by a small percentage, but the winner takes all.
For example: out of the last 12 elections, Florida has voted Republican eight times, and Democrat four times – the state voted with the winning candidate 11 of 12 times.
— Yahoo News Australia (@YahooNewsAU) November 3, 2020
Yes. This has happened five times, including in the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton amassed more than 2.5 million votes more than Trump, but because Trump got more votes by a small margin in a few key states, he gained their electoral college votes. pic.twitter.com/HdudivJDpn
— Yahoo News Australia (@YahooNewsAU) November 3, 2020
Here's everything you need to know about #Election2020 | @NWWhigham https://t.co/45sO2NNSmS
— Yahoo News Australia (@YahooNewsAU) November 3, 2020
weehingthong 