What system does the US use to elect a president?

Answer 1

The President and Vice President of the United States are chosen by "Electors" from the various states. The Constitution (Art 2, Sec 1) provides that each State shall appoint , in such manner as its legislature may direct, a number of Electors equal to the total number of Senators and Representatives to which that State is entitled. These are commonly referred to as the "Electoral College" though this term appears nowhere in the Constitution, and they never meet as a body, each state's Electors meeeting separately in their State capital.

The 12th Amendment (ratified 1804) lays down that President and Vice President shall be voted for separately. Before that, there was no distinction between Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates. Each elector had two votes, and the "runner-up" for President became the Vice President. This led to problems in 1796 when the Federalist candidate, John Adams, was elected President, but his Democratic-Republican opponent, Thomas Jefferson, became Vice President. In 1800 Jefferson defeated Adams, but he and his running-mate, Aaron Burr, received an equal vote and it took 36 ballots for Congress to choose between them.

A majority of electoral votes is required to choose either a President or a Vice President. If no person has a majority for President, the House of Representatives chooses from the candidates with the three highest votes, but its vote is taken by states, with the total number of representatives from each state having one vote, and a majority of states is necessary to a choice. This happened in 1825, when John Quincy Adams was chosen amid furious claims of a corrupt bargain.

If no person has a majority for Vice President, the Senate chooses from the candidates with the two highest numbers of electoral votes. This has also happened once, in 1837, when Martin Van Buren's running mate, Richard M Johnson of Kentucky, failed to get a majority. However, the Senate was controlled by his fellow Democrats, and promptly elected him.

In the early Republic, electors were chosen by a variety of methods. In many states, they were chosen by the Legislature itself, but this practice largely died out in the 1820s, all the states except Delaware and South Carolina having abandoned it by 1828, and all except SC by 1832. SC retained it until the Civil War, and it has been used since then only in exceptional circumstances, by Florida in 1868 and Colorado in 1876. In 2000, it was suggested that if Florida's popular vote winner could not be determined in time, then the Legislature should step in and choose the electors itself, but in the event this was not needed.

With these exceptions, Electors have been chosen by the people of their respective states. In early days, they were often chosen in districts, similar to Congressional districts, but by the 1830s this had largely died out in favor of the "general ticket" or "winner take all" system, by which whoever won the highest vote in a state received all the electoral votes of that state. Michigan adopted the District system for the 1892 election, but reverted to the general ticket thereafter. Currently, the district system is used by only two states, Maine and Nebraska.

This system means that the nationwide popular vote has no bearing on the result. It is entirely possible for a majority of electors to go to a candidate who came second in the overall popular vote, and this has happened several times. In 1824, Congress chose JQ Adams although Andrew Jackson had received more votes, while Rutherford B Hayes was declared (questionably) to have gained a one-vote majority of electors although his opponent, Samuel J Tilden, was ahead on the popular vote. In 1888, Benjamin Harrison gained a majority of electors, though his popular vote was lower than Grover Cleveland's, while in 2000 George W Bush, though behind Albert Gore in popular votes, was declared the Electoral College winner after a disputed count in Florida.

The District of Columbia had no Electors, and this its inhabitants no vote, until 1961 when the 23rd Amendment provided that the District should have " the number of electors to which it would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous state" [ie 3 votes]. This brings the total number of electors to 538 (435 Representatives plus 100 Senators plus 3 from DC) and 270 votes are necessary for election.

Answer 2

The electors of each state meet in their state capital and send their votes to the President of the US Senate. In the presence of both houses of Congress he opens them, counts them and announces the result.

Answer 3

The electoral college system is used to elect a president.

Answer 4

The Electoral College.

Answer 5

Electoral College.

Answer 6

they use the democratic voting system

Answer 7

election