Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, despite the Democratic candidate securing nearly three million more votes. In 2000, George W. Bush won over Al Gore, who had half a million more votes. US elections are based on a unique system.
At the heart of this system is the Electoral College. In both of the aforementioned examples, the winning candidate managed to secure 270 electors.
The US electoral system dates back to 1787 and establishes the rules for electing a president indirectly and in a single round. The founders of the US saw this system as a compromise between the direct election of a president by citizens and the election of a president by Congress.
Over the decades, and following shock victories, many appeals have been submitted to Congress aiming to amend the electoral system, but none have succeeded.
There are 538 electors, mostly local party officials. Their names don’t appear on ballots, which only list the names of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates for both parties.
The number of electors each state has is determined by adding the number of its representatives in the House (which depends on population) and its two senators.
For example, California has 55 electors, Texas has 38, while Alaska, Vermont, Wyoming, and Delaware have only 3 each.
The candidate who wins the most votes in a state automatically wins all its electors. The exceptions are Nebraska and Maine, which distribute their electors proportionally between the two candidates.
In November 2016, Trump won 306 electors. Millions of Americans called to prevent the Republican from becoming president, but only two electors from Texas refused to vote for him, leaving him with 304 votes in the Electoral College.
Trump’s 2016 victory, despite not winning the popular vote, was not unprecedented. In total, five American presidents have won the election without a popular vote majority. John Quincy Adams was the first, in 1824, against Andrew Jackson.
The 2000 election ended in an epic battle in Florida between George W. Bush and Al Gore. The Democrat won the national popular vote, but ultimately the Republican secured 271 electors.
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