USA 2024: How does the Electoral College system work?

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00:00The U.S. presidential election is a nationwide vote,

00:04but each time, the race comes down to a handful of states

00:07that truly decide the winner,

00:09known as swing states or battleground states.

00:12Why is this?

00:14It's all thanks to a unique process called the Electoral College.

00:18Here's how it works.

00:19The U.S. is made up of 50 states,

00:21and each holds its own contest for president.

00:24The winner of each state earns that state's electoral votes,

00:28with a number based on population.

00:31The number of electors that each state gets

00:33is directly related to their representation in Congress.

00:37So Wyoming has one member of the House of Representatives

00:40and two senators.

00:42That means that they've got three Electoral College votes.

00:44By contrast, California, which is very populous,

00:46has 52 representatives and then two senators,

00:49so they have 54 Electoral College votes.

00:51In total, the Electoral College consists of 538 electors,

00:56so a majority of 270 electoral votes

00:59is required to win the presidency.

01:02In 2024, some states are nearly certain

01:04to choose the Republican candidate,

01:06such as Texas and Florida.

01:09Others predictably vote for the Democratic candidate,

01:12like California and New York.

01:14The states that remain, those are the swing states,

01:18the ones where the race is so competitive

01:20their electors could potentially be won by either candidate.

01:24It's voters in these states that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris

01:28have focused their time and money on trying to win over.

01:31We win Pennsylvania.

01:33We win this great commonwealth.

01:35We are going to win the whole ballgame.

01:37It's such an important place.

01:39And so Wisconsin, today I ask you,

01:42are you ready to make your voices heard?

01:45The states considered battlegrounds change each election.

01:49Usually it's one, two, maybe three states.

01:52This year, there are seven states

01:54where either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris could win.

01:57Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania,

02:02North Carolina, and Georgia.

02:05The Electoral College system also means

02:07it's entirely possible to win the most votes nationally

02:11but still lose the presidential election.

02:14This happened in 2016 when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote,

02:18but Donald Trump won the Electoral College,

02:20and therefore, the presidency.

02:22The Electoral College has come under attack

02:24by groups who will point to the fact that

02:26Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016,

02:31that Al Gore won the popular vote in the year 2000,

02:33and yet the Electoral College biased the outcomes

02:35in favor of the Republican.

02:37Now, this is not built into the system to favor Republicans.

02:40It just so happened that the Electoral College in those times did.

02:43Supporters of the Electoral College say

02:45it forces candidates to campaign across a range of states

02:49instead of only focusing on big urban areas.

02:52And like it or not, this has been the process in the U.S. since 1787,

02:58and it plays a deciding role in who gets to sit in the White House.

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