How is the winning candidate in the US elections selected?

Contrary to popular belief, American voters do not actually elect their president directly. When citizens go to the polls, they vote only for "delegates", who in the electoral college choose the winning candidate for their states. There are five steps to choosing the American president: primary elections and conferences, National conferences, election campaigns, general elections, the electoral college.

A year before the election, candidates from the two main political parties, the Democratic and Republican, begin their campaigns, and each candidate's team goes on tours across the country.

At the start of the campaigns, each of the candidates takes part in televised debates, and during the debate each candidate must answer difficult questions about his policies.

All votes in each of the 48 states, in addition to the District of Columbia, go to the candidate who is more likely in the relevant state, and this means that on election day, whoever wins the popular vote, whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump, even if by one vote, it He gets all the electoral votes in the concerned state, and for this reason the candidates are not interested in the number of votes they get in each state, but rather by overtaking the opponent even by one vote.

In the American elections, the voters only determine their preference for one candidate over another, but the task of actually electing the president rests with the delegates, who number 538 in the electoral college, and it is possible that one of the candidates is more popular with the electorate, but fails to win enough states, In order to win the electoral majority votes in the compound.

In practice, a delegate always votes for the candidate who wins the popular vote in his state. If a delegate votes against choosing his state, he is described as “unfaithful”. This happened in the 2016 race, when seven votes were received by the electoral college in this way.

In 2016, candidate Donald Trump was nearly 3 million fewer votes than his rival, Hillary Clinton, but he won the presidency because the electoral college gave him a majority.

Election day this year falls on the third of November, members of the electoral college will formally meet and vote on December 14, votes will be counted, and the winner will be announced on January 6, 2021.

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