How much do you really know when it comes to voting? Well, I am here to break it down for you. So you know everything you need to know, about this years election!
Did you know that on November 8th you won't actually be voting for the candidates on the ballot?
You read correctly! You aren't voting for Trump, Clinton, Johnson, or Stein! In fact you are really voting for the electors that have pledged to vote for the candidate you vote for. See way back when elections first started, they came up with the Electoral College. Which was made because they thought the average American was ignorant and wasn't informed enough. Back then they didn't have cell phones, TV's, or anything. So that was true!
Who are the Electors?
The Electors are people who pledge to vote for the canadate that you vote for. So say in the state of Georgia, that Gary Johnson wins 57% of the votes and that Hillary Clinton wins 15% of the votes. The electors would then vote for Gary Johnson, which means Johnson gets that entire states vote.
How are Electors chosen?
Electors are chosen based on how many representatives a state has, plus two for their Senates. So take the state of Mississippi for example, they have 4 representatives and plus their 2 senates, that gives them 6 electors. Now there is an elector for each district. Yes, you are reading correctly! States are put into districts and each district must be equal in population. So that is one elector for each district. So Mississippi, has 6 electoral districts.
Now there are 50 states in the U.S. and all except for two, do the Winner-Takes-All-Policy. That is where if Donald Trump gets 57% votes in Mississippi and Gary Johnson gets 15% of the votes. Donald Trump gets that entire states vote. Now as I mentioned there are two states that don't do that, it is North Dakota and Maine. They actually take the popular vote and the actual ballot votes, and put them together. They then put that number into percentages and whoever ends up having the highest percentage, that's who that State votes for. Now with this being said a person can lose the popular vote, but they can still win the presidency. It's happened a lot, like almost every other election has been like that.
When does voting start?
Citizens all vote on November 8th, when they count those the Electors won't actually vote until the second Tuesday after the first Monday of December. They then don't officially announce who wins the presidency until the second Wednesday after the first Monday of January of 2017. So even though they give you an estimated winner, that could all be wrong.
