America’s democratic process for selecting the president and vice-president is based on the electoral college; not on the direct vote of the people. As a result, with the nation deeply divided, a handful of states will determine who is the next president and vice president.
During the constitutional convention of 1787, the creation of an electoral college was offered as an alternative to the popular vote and congressional district-based election. The result was Article II, section 1, clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution. It provides that the president and vice-president are to be chosen by electors in “Each State… in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct … equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress… .”
Candidates, thus, can win the national popular vote but not the Electoral College. The Electoral College has played a crucial role in the election of the president and vice president on five occasions -1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 - when the president and vice president have been elected without winning the national popular vote.
Electors are on the ballot through their selection by the political parties or the presidential campaigns. They are intended to vote for their nominee. In presidential general elections, voters are officially voting for the political party’s slate of electors, not the actual presidential and vice presidential candidates.
By 1836, a statewide winner-take-all choice of electors became the practice. The only deviations have been the adoption in 1972 by Maine and in 1992 by Nebraska of district plans where electors are chosen by Congressional districts, as well as two at-large electors assigned to the winner of the statewide popular vote.
Electors have not always followed the dictates of their political party. In the history of presidential elections, 179 electors have chosen not to vote for the candidate to whom they were pledged: 106 because of a personal preference, 71 because the candidate died before the election, and two because of abstention. Traditionally, there was no sanction for not following the dictates of the party appointing the electors.
In unanimous decisions in 2020, in Chiafalo v. Washington and Colorado Department of State v. Baca, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the states may enforce laws to punish faithless electors. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia mandate that electors vote for the winner of the state's popular vote.
In 2016, Trump won electoral votes in the three swing states to beat Hillary Clinton by a little over 77,000 votes. Trump won in Pennsylvania by 44,000 votes (0.7%), in Wisconsin by 22,748 votes (0.7%), and in Michigan by 10,704 votes (0.2%).
Trump: 304
Clinton: 227
In 2020, Biden carried 19 safe Democratic states, the District of Columbia, and Nebraska’s Second District. In addition, he won narrowly in six of the seven swing states: Michigan (2.8%), Nevada (2.4%), Pennsylvania (1.2%), Wisconsin (0.6%), (Arizona 0.3%), and Georgia (0.2%). Significantly, electoral votes for Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had gone Trump in 2016.
Biden: 306
Trump: 232
The 2024 presidential race also could be close. The Republican candidates start out with a solid, likely, and leaning base of 235 electoral votes, and the Democratic candidates with a solid, likely, and leaning base of 226 electoral votes. The remaining 77 electoral votes which will decide the outcome, will come from the following states:
In potential play:
Only 30.6 million citizens in swing states out of a total population of 330 million people in the United States will decide by a handful of votes the outcome of the Electoral College and, thus, the next President of the United States.
