5 Facts About Elections
Dr. Thomas Bursich • November 12, 2020
We just had quite the election in the United States, where official results are still undecided.
During this election, we had to brush up on our electoral knowledge, especially as we waited for the results to come in.
Here are five things we learned.
1-Elections are decided by the electoral college
While it might seem that the popular vote would determine the winner, it is actually the electoral college that determines the winner. The founding fathers created the electoral college to provide a fairer way of determining the President instead of having Congress elect them or just the popular vote. Electors vote based on who wins the majority of votes in their state. Whichever candidate reaches 270 (or more) electoral votes wins the election.
2- Winners can lose the popular vote
You’d think that the winner of the election would win both the popular vote and the electoral college vote, right? In theory, but several times in our country’s history the winner of the Presidential election lost the popular vote. This happened most recently in the 2016 election where President Trump won 304 electoral votes but lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes.
3- Washington D.C. has electoral votes
This may not be a surprise to everyone, but even though it is not a state and actually has no representation (no senators or congressmen), Washington D.C. does have three electoral votes to help elect the President.
4- Electoral Votes are determined by Representation
There is actually a method to how each state’s electoral votes are determined. At the very minimum, a state will have three votes: two for the two senators and one for the one representative. Every state will get two votes for two senators and then it will vary based on how many congressmen they have in the
House of Representatives. Virginia has 13 total electoral votes: 2 senators and then 11 representatives. Delaware has the bare minimum of just three electoral votes: two senators and one representative.
5 – States can split up their electoral votes
Who knew this was a thing? In this election we saw that both Maine and Nebraska split their votes. This means that both Vice President Biden and President Trump got votes in both states. In Maine, Vice President Biden won the state so he received two votes and then he also won congressional district one so he got a total of three votes. President Trump won congressional district two, so he received one vote.
While the Associated Press has officially called the election, several states are still counting votes and recounting votes. What an exciting election to witness!
