When you vote, your voice is heard in decisions made by elected officials at local, state and federal levels of government. These decisions have a profound impact on our daily lives. They determine how much funding goes to your local school district, if there are potholes repaired in your street or when your city’s trash gets picked up, what laws are passed regarding gun safety and immigration, how much access to healthcare you have, how safe our schools and neighborhoods are and so much more.
In the US, the election process begins with parties holding presidential primaries and caucuses and their national conventions. These events decide who will represent the party on the ballot in the general election in November.
Once a candidate is pre-listed on the voting ballot, the election takes place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Each state and the District of Columbia have 538 electoral votes, which are distributed based on each state’s relative population. A winner is declared when a candidate has won a majority of the states’ electoral votes.
The Electoral College system inflates the importance of a few “battleground” or highly contested states where voters can influence an outcome. It has happened five times in history that a candidate has won the presidency even though another had received more popular votes. There are rules in place to prevent faithless electors from choosing a different candidate than they are supposed to, but there is still some uncertainty on how this would play out in real life.