US ELECTION 2024
This is how every vote is counted: The process behind the 2024 presidential election
Election Day is getting closer. With little over 48 hours before US polling stations open, let’s take a closer look at the voting process.
Tuesday’s US presidential elections will have a great impact worldwide. Donald Trump wants to return to power after losing in 2020, while Kamala Harris wants to become the first female president of the United States in history.
In the US presidential election, the popular vote is simply an aggregate of all voters from all of the states nationwide. The candidate who gets the most votes nationwide is said to have won the popular vote.
Popular vote versus the Electoral vote
Unlike other countries where the popular vote ends up defining the president, in the United States the voting process is different, it does not depend entirely on the popular vote. In other words, it’s possible to win the popular vote and still lose the election. So let’s explain in detail the process behind them.
A group of electors selects the winner after taking into account the votes of the citizens. This is known as the ‘Electoral College’. It is a process that includes the selection of electors, the meeting of the electors who vote for the president and vice president, and the counting of the electors’ votes.
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There are 538 electors in total. Each state has the same number of electors as it has members of Congress (one for each member of the House of Representatives and two senators). To win the election, a majority of more than 270 electoral votes (just over 50%) is required.
The number of electors in each state depends on the number of inhabitants: That is, California has the most electors with a total of 55, followed by Texas with 38, and Florida and New York with 29. Whoever wins the popular vote in each state takes all the electoral votes.
Electoral votes
| State | Electoral votes |
|---|---|
| Alabama | 9 |
| Alaska | 3 |
| Arizona | 11 |
| Arkansas | 6 |
| California | 54 |
| Colorado | 10 |
| Connecticut | 7 |
| Delaware | 3 |
| District of Columbia | 3 |
| Florida | 30 |
| Georgia | 16 |
| Hawaii | 4 |
| Idaho | 4 |
| Illinois | 19 |
| Indiana | 11 |
| Iowa | 6 |
| Kansas | 6 |
| Kentucky | 8 |
| Louisiana | 8 |
| Maine | 4 |
| Maryland | 10 |
| Massachusetts | 11 |
| Michigan | 15 |
| Minnesota | 10 |
| Mississippi | 6 |
| Missouri | 10 |
| Mountain | 4 |
| Nebraska | 5 |
| Snowfall | 6 |
| New Hampshire | 4 |
| New Jersey | 14 |
| New Mexico | 5 |
| New York | 28 |
| North Carolina | 16 |
| North Dakota | 3 |
| Ohio | 17 |
| Oklahoma | 7 |
| Oregon | 8 |
| Pennsylvania | 19 |
| Rhode Island | 4 |
| South Carolina | 9 |
| South Dakota | 3 |
| Tennessee | 11 |
| Texas | 40 |
| Utah | 6 |
| Vermont | 3 |
| Virginia | 13 |
| Washington | 12 |
| West Virginia | 4 |
| Wisconsin | 10 |
| Wyoming | 3 |
What is a faithless elector?
Then, just to complicate matters, we also have what are know as faithless electors. A faithless elector is generally a party representative who does not have faith in the election result within their region and instead, votes for another candidate, or abstains.
The number of faithless electors in each election is general quite low - there were 10 in 2016 and there were none at all in 2020.
To differentiate votes, each party has its own color. Thus, the color blue is used to refer to the Democrats, while red refers to the Republican Party.