Synopsis: The key is that independent states are electing their government.
In that first election 10 states voted, rather than the 13 on the first flag because New York failed to choose their electors on time, and North Carolina and Rhode Island had not ratified the constitution yet.
Note that while it is now the President has the most individual power, the executive that he leads is only one of three branches of government with the courts and congress being the other two in a system designed such that no one branch has absolute power, in part to avert the possibility of a dictator seizing control.
It mostly feels like one national election.
As stated above, the states appoint members of the presidential college, and thus each voter is voting on how their state should vote.
US citizens are all also citizens of their state, and they are voting for their state. This is in some ways similar to how citizens of EU are also citizens of their own member state, and the people of France are both citizens of France and of the EU. However, the rules are reversed from in Europe, as all citizens of France are automatically citizens of the EU, while all US citizens residing in a state are automatically citizens of that state.
When the rules for electing the president were created, citizenship of a state was well established, but the idea of being a citizen of the union of states was new. It was not intended that citizens of the US states would directly vote for the President of Union of States that make up the USA, and technically, they still don’t. Instead, citizens now technically vote for “electors” for each state, who have pledged to vote for two specific presidential candidates, with one being a candidate for president and the other for vice president.
Even though the aggregate national popular vote is calculated by state officials, media organizations, and the Federal Election Commission, the people only indirectly elect the president and vice president. The president and vice president of the United States are elected by the Electoral College, which consists of 538 electors from the fifty states and Washington, D.C. Electors are selected state-by-state, as determined by the laws of each state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College#Modern_mechanics
When the first US presidential election was finalised in January 1789 just prior to the constitution being ratified in March 1789, there were only 11 states (Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York) in the union, the total population was under 4 million, Federal power was strictly limited, there were no political parties and “democracy” did not mean everyone got a vote:
Though all states allowed some rudimentary form of popular vote, only six ratifying states allowed any form of popular vote specifically for presidential electors. In most states only white men, and in many only those who owned property, could vote. Free black men could vote in four Northern states, and women could vote in New Jersey until 1804. In some states, there was a nominal religious test for voting.
1788–89 United States presidential election – Wikipedia
The president was, and still is, elected by “electors” of the presidential college, with each state allocated a number of electors determined by the number of members of congress for their state, which is in turn determined by a combination of representatives in proportion to population plus 2 state senators.
Each elector votes for 2 candidates, which to prevent each state simply voting for its own candidates, must be from 2 different states. Originally the candidate winning the most votes from the electoral college became president with the second choice becoming vice-president, but this was later changed to become two separate votes for president and vice president.
In theory, the idea of an electoral college would allow for the election of presidents who, unlike today’s politicians, would not need to first achieve celebrity or fame to be elected, as presidential candidates would only need to become known to the relatively small number of “electors” instead of needing to achieve the fame required to be voted for by the majority of the entire population.
Companies appoint selection committees to find and choose new CEOs rather than hold a vote for the most popular staff member to become the leader. It is recognised that a popular vote would likely end up choosing people focusing on popularity over what is good for the company.
In many countries, the people vote for politicians who themselves choose the head of government, but it would seem the goal was to avoid the processes of politics.
The problem with turning the theory into practice is “how do you choose electors who would reflect the will of the people, or could be trusted to make a wise choice?” For electors to win a popular vote, they would then have to be politicians or widely known celebrities. Some states tried different systems for appointing electors were tried, but over time states settled on a system of the people choosing electors not because of their ability to choose, but because the elector has already made their choice, making the elector a proxy for the candidate of choice of the voter.
How the electoral college works today.
In practice, now in the 21st century, instead of the “electors” of the electoral college having freedom of how they will vote, electors are chosen solely on how have they have “pledged” to vote, which means once electors are chosen, their vote is predetermined. The identity of the “elector” immaterial, and all that matters is for whom they have pledged to vote.
Votes for electors are run for each state, with voters voting for electors who have already pledged to vote for the party of their choice. Rules for how electors for the state are chosen by the election vary slightly from state to state, but in every state, technically in 2020, instead of “voting for Biden or Trump”, each person was voting for “electors who will vote for Biden” or “electors who will vote for Trump”.
For most states, the votes for electors for the state are tallied and all electors appointed by the state are those voting for the most popular choice within the state. So, in states where “electors for Biden” won, all appointed electors would be those having “pledged” to vote for Biden.
Rules differ from state to state, but other than for Maine and Nebraska where electors are allocated for each electoral district, all electoral college votes for the state are allocated to “the winning ticket”, which means the electors nominated by the “ticket”, which in practice means the party, that receives the most votes, become the delegates to the electoral college for that state.
Each political party nominates electors who have pledged to vote for the candidate nominated by that party at the party conference prior to the election.
Faithless electors.
Following the votes by the public, which technically results in only the election of electoral college, the electoral college then votes for the president, with the outcome of that vote taken as a forgone conclusion, with all delegates for each state voting directed by the presidential election for their state.
However, it is possible for one or more of those nominated to the electoral college to, make their own decision on how to vote, rather than vote for the party that nominated them. Given that those nominated to the college all “pledged” in advance how they would vote, this would require them to be breaking their pledge, which makes them a “faithless elector”.
Being a faithless elector is, in most states, punishable by law, but would be necessary if, for example, the person they pledged to vote for died, was declared insane, or otherwise was deemed no longer fit for public office between the date when the public voted and the late date formal vote by the electoral college.
In practice, electors failing to vote in accordance with the public vote has happened on previous occasions but can now, in most states, be punished by law in most states, should the state in question determine the unexpected vote to be unjustifiable.
If the candidate dies or is incapacitated after Election Day, the Constitution kicks in. The first milestone will be the December 17, 2023, meetings of the electoral college. It may surprise many to know that the electoral college is composed of real flesh and blood electors who meet in their state capitols and sign documents (attestations) that are forwarded on to the president of the Senate (the vice president) for the purposes of counting only! We only hear about electors when someone decides to make a point and vote for someone whose slate they were not on. (During segregation some of these so-called “faithless electors” voted for segregationist candidates.1) Some states have laws binding electors to vote for the winner of the election, others do not. If the winner of the convention dies or is incapacitated it is likely that the legislature would quickly meet to amend the law so that their votes would count.
What happens if a presidential candidate cannot take office due to death or incapacitation before January 2025?
There have been faithless electors in the past, very rarely happens, but the fact that electoral college is composed of real people would only ever matters in exceptional circumstances.
The democratic vote and electoral college can fail to reach 270 votes- leaving the decision to congress!
Currently there are 538 delegates in total, which means 270 votes are required to one candidate to win a majority of those votes. If votes are split 50/50 between two candidates, then both would win 269 votes and neither would be the winner, and in a perhaps more likely scenario, if there are more than 2 candidates would manage to have delegates in the conference, then again, it may be possible that no single candidate wins 270 votes.
One restriction of the members of the electoral college being bound by their pledge as determined by the public vote, is that there is no system for going back to the public to ask again, and should no candidate win 270 votes, then the electoral college is deemed to have failed to elect the president, leaving the decision on would be president to congress.
If no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the Presidential election leaves the Electoral College process and moves to Congress. The House of Representatives elects the President from the three (3) Presidential candidates who received the most electoral votes. Each State delegation has one vote and it is up to the individual States to determine how to vote. (Since the District of Columbia is not a State, it has no State delegation in the House and cannot vote). A candidate must receive at least 26 votes (a majority of the States) to be elected. The Senate elects the Vice President from the two (2) Vice Presidential candidates with the most electoral votes. Each Senator casts one vote for Vice President. (Since the District of Columbia is has no Senators and is not represented in the vote). A candidate must receive at least 51 votes (a majority of Senators) to be elected. If the House of Representatives fails to elect a President by Inauguration Day, the Vice-President Elect serves as acting President until the deadlock is resolved in the House.
National archives, as quoted in: What if no candidate wins 270 electoral votes?
A “third party” candidate could win even with a small number of votes.
While in the US, no third-party candidate seems likely to ever get close to winning 270 votes, all they need to achieve is to win sufficient votes to prevent any other candidate reaching 270 votes which moves to decisions on who becomes president to congress, provided they can then present themselves to congress as the compromise candidate.
In practice: There despite the differences, it feels like direct voting for the president.
Even though technically voters are voting for electors who in turn then vote for the president, in the process of voting, it feels just like directly voting for one of the combinations of president and vice president.
For example, in the 2020 election in California, a voter could choose between voting for Biden-Harris and voting for Trump-Pence, and whichever combination of the two received the most votes.
Even before the final runoff, there was a hotly contested Democratic primary with voting from the public which at times seemed to favour candidates other than Biden.
Because votes in the actual election are technically votes for electors, the voting choices are offered as “tickets” such as the Biden-Harris ticket or the Trump-Pence ticket, and as there was no Trump-Harris ticket, it was not possible to vote for Trump for president and Harris for vice president, despite the fact that there is nothing to prevent electors voting this way.
Primaries: The hope for democratically elected leaders?
The outcome for the original the electoral college system of the USA was one where, as Westminster System countries like the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc., voters can who represents them in parliament, but not who leads the executive branch of government. In all these countries, some form of “pledged voting” for the leader of government has evolved where, even though voters are not directly voting for the leader of the government, because they are voting for representatives who have declared who they will support to be leader, their vote is largely a proxy vote for the leader of the national government.
While in countries with a Westminster System and a prime minister as the head of executive government it is always the politicians who choose the prime minister from amongst the members of parliament, in countries such as the USA with a president as head of executive government, there are more options on how the president can be selected.
While the goal of the system of “electors” was to further distance the choice of President from politics and being a popularity contest, the system of primaries and “pledged electors” has turned things to the opposite direction and into a popularity contest not just with parliament, but within the entire voting population.
The current system of primaries and pledged electors only arose in 1972, with all previous presidents including those of Mount Rushmore George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, were all chosen by electors not bound to a popular vote. The people did get to vote for their party knowing who their party had pledged to have as president should they win, but the voters could not choose the party’s nominee.
The promise of primaries and pledged electors is that the people get to directly chose the candidates for President, and then people get to choose from those candidates. Still, the problem becomes how do you make that work?
Neither the concept of primaries nor pledged electros is part of the constitution or legally required, but initiatives of political parties themselves.
The United States Constitution has never specified this process; political parties have developed their own procedures over time. Some states hold only primary elections, some hold only caucuses, and others use a combination of both
United States presidential primary – Wikipedia
The two main political party now hold their own elections called primaries where the voting public gets to indicate which candidate has the most support. However, the next question becomes: “who gets to vote in the primaries?”, with the following options:
- Closed primaries: Only people registered as voters for the party can vote in primaries, but this has the limitation of only polling those already committed to voting for the party, and failing to choose candidates who have broader support.
- Open primaries: Allowing all potential voters to vote in primaries, adding the risk that those who support other parties will intentionally misdirect the vote.
Even in open primaries, voters can at least in theory only vote in the primaries for one party, which limits those voting in primaries predominantly those sufficiently motivated to vote for the party to give up their time in order to bother.
The end result is that participants in each primary are not only predominantly people already aligned with the party, and most passionate about support for their party.
How well does having the people chose candidates and the winner work?
In a country with two political parties with almost equal support, winning a primary requires the support of around 50% of people voting in the primary, and at most 50% of people can vote in each primary, which means the primaries select two candidates who each have the support of up to 25% of voters.
However, since the voters most engaged in the electoral process tend to be those with most extreme views, the 25% of support has the potential to be the most polarised 25%.
Biden highlights system failure?
The democrats didn’t even run real primaries when they should have, with Biden as the only mainstream candidate, and even now most discussion is about “who can beat Trump” rather than who has the vision for the USA over the next 4 years.
Trump: Love him or hate him, there seems little in between.
On one hand there are Trump fans with an almost religious level of devotion and on the other, there is even a project, “The Lincoln Project“, for republicans dedicated to being anti-Trump.
The videos below are not selected to show balance, but that people, in most cases the makers of the videos, are so strongly anti-trump, and others, those in the videos or discussed in the videos, are so strongly pro-Trump even when people don’t expect them to be.
What could go wrong?
Use of the constitution where a state can decide how the state votes.
While the current convention is, and has been for over 150 years, for all states to hold elections to enable their citizens to choose how the states electors should vote, the US constitution does not require the states to hold those elections, or to be bound by their outcome.
“Electors, not popular votes are the currency of a presidential election. Whoever gets to 270 wins. Under the constitution, under article 2, each state legislature shall decide how electors are appointed in the manner of its own choosing. So, when the founders drafted the document, state legislatures chose the president, not popular vote of each state. It’s been more than 150 years since that was true, but the supreme court has ruled, in another case in what’s known as dicta, sort of side comment, that the states can take back the power from their voters if they want to, and there are Trump supporters who are pushing the argument that the supreme court should recognise that legislators can do that at any time, and they can even reverse the verdict of their voters to do so, and there are signs that at least 4 justices on the supreme court are friendly to that doctrine.”
Technically, the next attempt to overthrow a national election may not qualify as a coup. It will rely on subversion more than violence, although each will have its place. If the plot succeeds, the ballots cast by American voters will not decide the presidency in 2024. Thousands of votes will be thrown away, or millions, to produce the required effect. The winner will be declared the loser. The loser will be certified president-elect.
Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun
This all sounds worrying, but while technically possible for the politicians of a state to break with convention and overrule the voters who put them in power, that either requires already having dictators at a state level not bound by the will of the people of the state, or some other quite exceptional circumstances.
Could following the constitution rather than convention be a threat?
By itself, a quite minor threat.
Voters choose who is in power in their state, so at least indirectly, the constitution still only allows for a choice of president that reflects the votes of the people of each state.
The end result of only following the constitution and not also convention would only be for democracy to be applied in slightly different manner. In a really close election, changing the rules of how democracy is applied could change the outcome from how the result would be otherwise, but when votes are extremely close, any system, including staying with convention, can arguably produce questionable results.
Manipulating the system while abiding by the constitution alone is going to see an unpopular dictator installed as president. The public officials who wish to install the dictator, need to themselves first win the popular vote within their state, which makes their actions the result of democracy. The threat is only that of states following the guidelines of the original US constitution, and the original constitution was never the recipe for installing a dictator.
The situation could only arise in a swing state where the state government is dominated by the party that then loses the Presidental vote within that state. Even then, for a state to submit results contrary to the popular vote would be an extremely bold move. It would require a majority of the states elected representatives being confident of their future, even follow taking such a very bold step and blocking the votes of the majority within their state. You would think that there would need to be some events following the vote, or at the time of the vote, that were highly controversial. Perhaps it would even take rioting within the state disputing the result for the government to feels sufficiently empowered.
It would seem far more likely that a state will fail to endorse the vote, resulting in no electors for that state being included in the final national tally. If sufficient states withhold their vote, it could be possible to prevent the any candidate reaching the 270-vote threshold to become President, leaving congress to then appoint the president.
Changing the result doesn’t require reversing results, just blocking them.
As stated above, what is required for the party controlling congress to be able to determine the victor in a US presidential election, is to block the opposing candidate from reaching 270 votes, which then gives congress the decision on who is to become president.
Consider the 2020 election, where Biden won 306 votes to Trump’s 232 votes, which means 37 votes would need to have been blocked to give congress the decision on who becomes president. The key point is that it that case there is technically no further great benefit to having votes reversed than having them blocked. If 37 votes were reverses, then it would be a tie at 269-269 and congress votes to decide the president, but if 37 votes are blocked, then at 269-232 it is still up to congress to decide who becomes president.
A state blocking the votes from that state is quite possible.
Given ongoing controversy over makeup and new rules from the [Georgia]state election board, how does he [Anthony] think [Georgia Governor] Kemp will balance his GOP loyalty with ensuring the election is fair? Quick thing on the election rules, what happened with the certification changes is that, last week [August 2024], Georgia’s election board, which is controlled by Republican party majority, voted 3 to 2 in favour of a new rule which essentially makes election result certification not mandatory. The election board can say that it is investigating the result for an indefinite period, for reasonable cause with no definition of reasonable cause.
The rest is politics podcast.
Note that delaying certification of result by around one month is all that is required to block the votes from a state being counted toward the 270 required to declare winner.
The house can now veto the electoral college result.
In the interview with Katie Couric, National Security Professor Neal Katyal states the 2022 amendments to Presidential transition acts did make it clear that the role of the vice-president in certifying results is ceremonial, but also now mean that a simple majority in both houses of the incoming federal government is all that is required to reject the electoral college votes from any or even all states.
There are also podcast series such as this one on the ways congress can overturn the results of the presidential election.
Election of the president by congress.
The vote of the electoral college is now subject to the approval of the new congress, who also then elects the president if the electoral college vote fails.
If no candidate receives the necessary approved votes from the electoral college, then the candidate supported by the most states then becomes president, with each state casting a single vote, as supported by the most members of the incoming government from both senate and house of representatives of that state.
Disclaimer: This was written by an analyst, not a political expert.
Ok, so I may believe I am a analysist, scientist, engineer, futurist, entrepreneur or even philosopher, but I have no claim to being a political expert or commentator, or even American, so take any opinions here as the point of view of an outside observer.
Updates:
- 2024 August 30 : Faithless electors, how the democratic vote can fail, and blocking a result.