US election 2020: What is the electoral college?
The US presidential election will take place in less than 100 days. But it's possible the candidate with the most votes from the public won't be the winner.
The electoral college meets every four years, a few weeks after election day, to carry out that task.The number of electors from each state is roughly in line with the size of its population.California has the most electors - 55 - while a handful of sparsely populated states like Wyoming, Alaska and North Dakota have the minimum of three.
For example, if the Republican candidate won 50.1% of the vote in Texas, they would be awarded all of the state's 38 electoral college votes. In fact, two out of the last five elections were won by candidates who had fewer votes from the general public than their rivals. Only three other presidents have been elected without winning the popular vote, all of them in the 19th Century: John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B Hayes and Benjamin Harrison.When the US constitution was being drawn up in 1787, a national popular vote to elect a president was practically impossible. This was because of the size of the country and the difficulty of communication.
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