Election 2020

The Basics for a Presidential Election

At polling locations or through mail-in ballots, Americans vote for the combined ticket of the president and vice president and each state tallies the votes. Instead of giving the win to the national vote winner, in 1787 the Continental Congress decided each state should have input. After the election, the state determines who got the most votes per state, and each state has a different amount of points depending on the population of the state. Smaller states have less votes. For example North Carolina has 15 while Florida has 29 and West Virginia has 5. In December, the official points are tallied up and the first candidate to get 270 points is the winner. This system is called the Electoral College.

However, in some people’s opinion, the way presidents are elected may seem unfair. For example, in the last election the candidate with the most votes (Hillary Clinton) lost because of the Electoral College. Another thing to think about is that there are exactly 11 states that will automatically get you to 270 points. Yes, it does mean you got a lot of the population, but possibly not the majority. Think about it this way, with almost every state the president received 50-70 percent of the vote. Which meant that there would still be about 50 to 30 percent of people who voted for the other person. If you were to add those people up to the other states they would probably have more people than the 11 states. Surely the Electoral College debate will be discussed before the next election, watch for it in the news.