The U.S. election can be a confusing process, and it sometimes departs in significant ways from election customs seen in parliamentary democracies.
With that in mind, here are some answers to common questions, often sent to CBC News, for how the presidential election process will play out between Tuesday and the inauguration of the next White House occupant in January.
Do Americans vote directly for the president?
No. While Americans do cast a vote for their preferred candidate for president, they don’t directly elect that person. Instead, they’re essentially choosing a slate of electors in their state or jurisdiction that have been pledged to a particular candidate.
Why do Americans vote on the first Tuesday in November?
A new federal law passed in 1945 set out that American elections would take place on the first Tuesday in November. At that time, most voting citizens in the U.S. were working as farmers — having Tuesday as voting day let them attend church on Sundays and markets on Wednesdays, while November fell nicely between the busy fall harvest and bitter winter cold.
What is the electoral college?
It’s the process by which the U.S. president is elected, established in the U.S. Constitution in 1787, by founders who rejected a simple popular vote count. There are now 538 electors in the electoral college, divided among each state as well as the District of Columbia. Each elector represents one electoral college vote. The electors vote based on the results of the popular vote in their respective states or districts. Each state and district is assigned a number of electoral college votes, ranging from 54 in California to three in a handful of states.
The U.S. presidential election in November is the only election in the country that doesn’t use the popular vote to determine a winner; instead it uses the slightly confusing — and often controversial — electoral college. Andrew Chang explains how the numbers add up and why winning an election can be just like winning a tennis match.
Why do some states have more electors?
Electors are allocated based on the number of total legislators a state has in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. The state’s number of House reps are largely determined by population data from the most recent census.
Who are the electors?
The electors are chosen by the candidate’s party in each state. They are everyday citizens, though often they are politically active people being rewarded by their respective parties. In 48 states, when a candidate wins a state, their entire allotment of electors are then appointed as the official state electors. Nebraska and Maine have district exceptions.
How does a presidential candidate win the election?
A candidate wins by earning 270 or more electoral college votes.
Voters in seven swing states will determine the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November. Andrew Chang breaks down each of the states in play for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and their pathways to 270 electoral college votes.
Can a candidate win the popular vote but lose the election?
Yes. In fact, it’s happened five times over 59 presidential elections: Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton 2016 were recent candidates, both Democrats, who won the popular vote but came out on the losing end of the electoral college. One-sided results in very populous states can help lead to a split.
What if there’s an electoral college tie?
If no candidate reaches 270 electoral votes, the House of Representatives and Senate determine the occupants of the White House. In the House, each state delegation gets one vote for president, whether it’s a state with a larger population like California or a smaller state like Wyoming. Individual senators, meanwhile, vote on who will be vice-president. Theoretically, the two chambers could vote for a president and vice-president from opposing parties.
If the House of Representatives fails to elect a president by Inauguration Day, the vice-president elect serves as acting president. In the event of a 25-25 tie in the House votes and a tie in the Senate, the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 states that, at least temporarily, the Speaker of the House becomes president. That said, the chambers are instructed to keep voting until ties are broken.
Can the results of the presidential election be legally contested?
Yes, but a candidate must challenge the results of a particular state or the District of Columbia — according to its respective laws and deadlines regarding such a challenge — as opposed to legally contesting the overall result. How long the process takes depends on the state and can range from days to weeks. Each state has its own laws regarding recounts, which can include automatic recounts depending on the margin of victory or requiring a petition from a candidate.
Donald Trump and his allies have spent months undermining the 2024 election, seemingly priming his supporters to dispute the results if he loses. It’s the 2020 playbook all over again but as CBC’s Ellen Mauro explains, the effort is far more sophisticated this time around.
After the 2020 election, Donald Trump’s campaign filed dozens of lawsuits contesting election processes in several states, but the courts didn’t find merit in their claims. Some states have also altered their laws since 2020, when a small number of county-level officials across the U.S. objected to particular results and refused to certify them. Any such disputes are meant to be handled by the relevant state election bodies.
If approved, challenges could proceed through the courts all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. This was the case in 2000, when Democratic nominee Al Gore challenged the results in Florida. The Supreme Court’s ruling ultimately allowed Republican candidate George W. Bush to secure the state’s electoral votes and become president.
What is the state certifying process after election night?
Local counties and boards in most states must certify their results within two weeks after the Nov. 5 election. States have different processes as to the scope and deadlines of mail-in and absentee voting, as well as timelines where voters can “cure” or fix those ballots if there have been ambiguities. The electoral college voters then meet in their respective states on Dec. 17 to cast their votes for president and vice-president on separate ballots.
Do electors have to vote for the winner in their state?
The U.S. Constitution doesn’t require it, but 33 states and the District of Columbia have laws on the books that require presidential electors to back their states’ popular vote winner in the electoral college. There were seven so-called faithless electors in 2016 and none in 2020. Some states void the votes of renegade electors and replace them with the winning candidate, but not all of them do. If it’s a razor-thin election, faithless electors in any of those states could have a huge impact.
What is the federal certifying process?
Federal officials are to receive the certificates from each state confirming how the electors voted by Dec. 25. After the electors cast their ballots, they are sent to Washington, D.C., where they will be counted in Congress on Jan. 6, 2025.
The count and winner are announced in a joint session of the House and Senate by the president of the Senate, a role held by the vice-president. There is no requirement for a vice-president to recuse from the role if they’re a presidential candidate. This means Kamala Harris will likely announce the results, certifying her own victory as Republican George H.W. Bush did in 1989, or defeat as Democrat Al Gore did in 2001.
While Donald Trump wanted his vice-president Mike Pence to reject elector results four years ago, the federal Electoral Count Reform Act was updated in 2022 to indicate that the vice-president’s role is “ministerial” and does not include “power to solely determine, accept, reject, or otherwise adjudicate or resolve disputes over the proper list of electors, the validity of electors, or the votes of electors.”
When will the next president of the United States be inaugurated?
The next inauguration will be on Jan. 20, 2025. In 2021, as an outgoing president, Trump departed from custom by not appearing at President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Biden has said he will attend on Jan. 20, irrespective of which party’s candidate wins.
- Still have questions about the U.S. election? Email us at ask@cbc.ca.