United States presidential election
The election of the president and the vice president of the United States is an indirect election in which citizens of the United States who are registered to vote in one of the fifty U.S. states or in Washington, D.C., cast ballots not directly for those offices, but instead for members of the Electoral College.[note 1] These electors then cast direct votes, known as electoral votes, for president, and for vice president. The candidate who receives an absolute majority of electoral votes (at least 270 out of 538, since the Twenty-Third Amendment granted voting rights to citizens of D.C.) is then elected to that office. If no candidate receives an absolute majority of the votes for president, the House of Representatives elects the president; likewise if no one receives an absolute majority of the votes for vice president, then the Senate elects the vice president.
For the most recent election, see 2020 United States presidential election. For the next election, see 2024 United States presidential election.
United States presidential elections (also known as United States general elections) differ from many republics around the world (operating under either the presidential system or the semi-presidential system) which use direct elections from the national popular vote ('one person, one vote') of their entire countries to elect their respective presidents. The United States instead uses indirect elections for its president through the Electoral College, and the system is highly decentralized like other elections in the United States.[1] The Electoral College and its procedure are established in the U.S. Constitution by Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2 and 4; and the Twelfth Amendment (which replaced Clause 3 after its ratification in 1804). Under Clause 2, each state casts as many electoral votes as the total number of its Senators and Representatives in Congress, while (per the Twenty-third Amendment, ratified in 1961) Washington, D.C., casts the same number of electoral votes as the least-represented state, which is three. Also under Clause 2, the manner for choosing electors is determined by each state legislature, not directly by the federal government. Many state legislatures previously selected their electors directly, but over time all switched to using the popular vote to choose electors. Beyond the parameters set in the U.S. Constitution, state law, not federal, regulates most aspects of administering the popular vote, including a majority of the voter eligibility and registration requirements.[1][2]
Almost all states mandate the winner of the plurality of its constituent statewide popular vote ('one person, one vote') shall receive all of that state's electors ("winner-takes-all'). Eighteen states also have specific laws that punish electors who vote in opposition to the plurality, known as "faithless" or "unpledged" electors.[3] In modern times, faithless and unpledged electors have not affected the ultimate outcome of an election, so the results can generally be determined based on the state-by-state popular vote. In addition, most of the time, the winner also wins the national popular vote. There have been four exceptions: 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 produced an Electoral College winner who lost the popular vote due to the outsized effects of close and narrow pluralities in numerous swing states. In addition, the 1824 election was the only presidential election under the current system ever decided by a contingent election in Congress, which elected a different president than the candidate with a plurality in both the electoral and popular vote.[4][5][6][7][8][9]
Presidential elections occur every four years on Election Day, which since 1845 has been the first Tuesday after November 1.[10][11][12] This date coincides with the general elections of various other federal, state, and local races; since local governments are responsible for managing elections, these races typically all appear on one ballot. The Electoral College electors then formally cast their electoral votes on the first Monday after December 12 at their state's capital. Congress then certifies the results in early January, and the presidential term begins on Inauguration Day, which since the passage of the Twentieth Amendment has been set at January 20.
The nomination process, consisting of the primary elections and caucuses and the nominating conventions, was not specified in the Constitution, but was developed over time by the states and political parties. These primary elections are generally held between January and June before the general election in November, while the nominating conventions are held in the summer. Though not codified by law, political parties also follow an indirect election process, where voters in the fifty states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories, cast ballots for a slate of delegates to a political party's nominating convention, who then elect their party's presidential nominee. Each party may then choose a vice presidential running mate to join the ticket, which is either determined by choice of the nominee or by a second round of voting. Because of changes to national campaign finance laws since the 1970s regarding the disclosure of contributions for federal campaigns, presidential candidates from the major political parties usually declare their intentions to run as early as the spring of the previous calendar year before the election (almost 21 months before Inauguration Day).[13]
History[edit]
Electoral College[edit]
Article Two of the Constitution originally established the method of presidential elections, including the creation of the Electoral College, the result of a compromise between those constitutional framers who wanted the Congress to choose the president, and those who preferred a national popular vote.[14]
As set forth in Article Two, each state is allocated a number of electors equal to the number of its delegates in both houses of Congress, combined. In 1961, the ratification of the Twenty-Third Amendment granted a number of electors to the District of Columbia, an amount equal to the number of electors allocated to the least populous state. However, U.S. territories are not allocated electors, and therefore are not represented in the Electoral College.
State legislatures[edit]
Constitutionally, the legislature of each state determines how its electors are chosen; Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 states that each state shall appoint electors "in such Manner as the Legislature Thereof May Direct".[15] During the first presidential election in 1789, only 6 of the 11 eligible states chose electors by any form of popular vote.[16][note 2]
Gradually throughout the years, the states began conducting popular elections to choose their slate of electors. In 1800, only five of the 16 states chose electors by a popular vote; by 1824, after the rise of Jacksonian democracy, the proportion of states that chose electors by popular vote had sharply risen to 18 out of 24 states.[17] This gradual movement toward greater democratization coincided with a gradual decrease in property restrictions for the franchise.[17] By 1840, only one of the 26 states (South Carolina) still selected electors by the state legislature.[18]
Vice presidents[edit]
Under the original system established by Article Two, electors cast votes for two candidates for president. The candidate with the highest number of votes (provided it was a majority of the electoral votes) became the president, and the second-place candidate became the vice president. This presented a problem during the presidential election of 1800 when Aaron Burr received the same number of electoral votes as Thomas Jefferson and challenged Jefferson's election to the office. In the end, Jefferson was chosen as the president because of Alexander Hamilton's influence in the House.
In response to the 1800 election, the Twelfth Amendment was passed, requiring electors to cast two distinct votes: one for president and another for vice president. While this solved the problem at hand, it reduced the prestige of the vice presidency, as the office was no longer held by the leading challenger for the presidency. The separate ballots for president and vice president became something of a moot issue later in the 19th century when it became the norm for popular elections to determine a state's Electoral College delegation. Electors chosen this way are pledged to vote for a particular presidential and vice presidential candidate (offered by the same political party). Although the president and vice president are legally elected separately, in practice they are chosen together.
Tie votes[edit]
The Twelfth Amendment also established rules when no candidate wins a majority vote in the Electoral College. In the presidential election of 1824, Andrew Jackson received a plurality, but not a majority, of electoral votes cast. The election was thrown to the House, and John Quincy Adams was elected president. A deep rivalry resulted between Andrew Jackson and House Speaker Henry Clay, who had also been a candidate in the election.
Since the vice presidential candidate John Calhoun received a majority of votes having been on both Jackson and Adams tickets so there was no need for the Senate to vote for a vice president.
Popular vote[edit]
Since 1824, aside from the occasional "faithless elector", the popular vote indirectly determines the winner of a presidential election by determining the electoral vote, as each state or district's popular vote determines its electoral college vote. Although the nationwide popular vote does not directly determine the winner of a presidential election, it does strongly correlate with who is the victor. In 54 of the 59 total elections held so far (about 91 percent), the winner of the national popular vote has also carried the Electoral College vote. The winners of the nationwide popular vote and the Electoral College vote have differed only in close elections. In highly competitive elections, candidates focus on turning out their vote in the contested swing states critical to winning an electoral college majority, so they do not try to maximize their popular vote by real or fraudulent vote increases in one-party areas.[19]
However, candidates have failed to get the most votes in the nationwide popular vote in a presidential election and still won. In the 1824 election, Jackson won the popular vote, but no one received a majority of electoral votes. According to the Twelfth Amendment, the House must choose the president out of the top three people in the election. Clay had come in fourth, so he threw his support to Adams, who then won. Because Adams later named Clay his Secretary of State, Jackson's supporters claimed that Adams gained the presidency by making a deal with Clay. Charges of a "corrupt bargain" followed Adams through his term.
Financial disclosures[edit]
Prior to 1967, many presidential candidates disclosed assets, stock holdings, and other information which might affect the public trust.[66] In that year, Republican candidate George W. Romney went a step further and released his tax returns for the previous twelve years.[66] Since then, many presidential candidates – including all major-party nominees from 1980 to 2012 – have released some of their returns,[67] although few of the major party nominees have equaled or exceeded George Romney's twelve.[68][69] The Tax History Project – a project directed by Joseph J. Thorndike and established by the nonprofit Tax Analysts group[70] – has compiled the publicly released tax returns of presidents and presidential candidates (including primary candidates).[71]
In 2016, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump broke with tradition, becoming the only major-party candidate since Gerald Ford in 1976 to not make any of his full tax returns public.[72] Trump gave a reason that he was being audited by the IRS.[72] However, no law or precedent prevents a person from releasing their tax returns while under audit. President Richard M. Nixon released his tax returns while they were under audit.[73][74]