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Jakarta –
The presidential election in the United States took place on November 3, 2020. The candidate who gets the most votes from the voters is not necessarily the winner. How is the electoral system in the United States?
The president of the United States is not directly elected by the voters. The country’s presidential candidates, nicknamed Uncle Sam, are fighting for the electoral vote.
The figure who obtains the most electoral votes has the right to serve as President of the United States for four years.
So who do Americans choose?
Quoted on the BBC, when Americans go to the polls in presidential elections, they are actually electing a group of officials who make up the electoral body.
The word “College” of the electoral college here simply refers to a group of people with a common task. These people are voters and their job is to elect the president and vice president.
Electoral agencies meet every four years, a few weeks after Election Day to carry out this task.
What does electoral sound mean?
Electoral votes are very crucial in determining who will become president. The electoral vote in the United States electoral system is the number of votes that each state in the United States has.
Of course, the number of votes varies from state to state depending on the population.
The state of California, for example, has 55 votes. While North Dakota has only 3 votes. The statewide total was 538 votes.
In the electoral system in the United States, it is generally controlled by two candidates, namely the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, both of whom need to obtain a minimum of 270 electoral votes to win this general election.
Electoral votes are obtained from popular votes or direct votes cast by the people in the states of the United States.
To obtain this vote, the “winner takes all” or winner takes all system is applied.
A small victory in a popular vote in one state can secure all the electoral votes in the country. The losing candidate will not get an electoral vote even if the loss is only 1 vote.
That is why Hillary Clinton finally lost to Donald Trump in the 2016 US elections. Despite the fact that the number of direct popular votes or popular votes for Hillary Clinton is greater than that of Trump.
Furthermore, in 2000, George W Bush won with 271 electoral votes, although the Democratic candidate Al Gore won the popular vote with more than half a million.
Why was an electoral sound system chosen?
When the United States constitution was written in 1787, it was virtually impossible to hold a national popular vote to elect a president. This is due to the size of the country and the difficulty of communication.
At the same time, there is little enthusiasm for allowing the president to be elected by lawmakers in the capital, Washington DC.
For the framers of the constitution to form an electoral institution in which each state elects voters.
The smaller countries like this system because it gives them more votes than the vote of the national people to decide on a president.
Electoral institutions were also favored by the southern states, where slaves made up a large part of the population. Although slaves did not vote, they were counted in the United States census (about three fifths of the population).
Since the number of electoral votes is determined by the number of residents of a state, the southern states have a greater influence on the election of presidents than the direct public votes cast on them.
According to the results of the 2020 United States provisional elections as reported by the Associated Press, Joe Biden’s position continues to exceed 264 electoral votes, while Donald Trump received 214 electoral votes.
See also the video ‘Long Dominated by the Republic, Joe Biden Successfully in Birukan Arizona’:
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