If you, like me, weren’t yet politically aware in the 2000 election, the results of the 2016 election might not be making much sense to you.
When the election finally came to a close on a November night at the turn of the millennium, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore had received more votes overall than Republican candidate George W. Bush. But, because of the Electoral College system, Bush claimed the presidency.
As of Wednesday morning, USA Today said Clinton had clinched 47.7 percent of the votes cast, while Trump sat at 47.5 percent. A thin margin, yes. But a margin, nonetheless. Yet, like Bush, Trump will claim the presidency because of the results based on the Electoral College.
The Electoral College, for the uninitiated, is the body that elects the president and vice president of the United States. Americans do not directly elect the two offices; rather, “electors” pledge their votes based on the majority of votes cast by the people they represent.
For every member of Congress that a state has, they receive one electoral vote. There are a total of 538 Electoral College votes up for grabs, one for each of the 100 Senators and 435 Representatives in Congress and three for Washington, D.C. The magic number that a candidate needs to clinch the presidency is 270.
Most states are winner-takes-all when it comes to electoral votes, but Maine and Nebraska use a district method that allows them to divvy up some of their electoral votes proportionally.
Does this sound overly complicated? Yes. But when the Electoral College was first put in place within the framework of the Constitution, it was deemed necessary to allow Americans in smaller states the same opportunity to influence a presidential election as their larger-state counterparts. In the interest of keeping it real, it also allowed the original political elites the opportunity to keep the voting public in check.
So how can a candidate receive the popular vote (i.e. the number of individual votes cast by Americans at the polls) and not win in the Electoral College? The candidate who receives a state’s popular vote receives all that state’s electors (again, except for in Maine and Nebraska), so while Clinton earned more votes, they were concentrated in fewer states and ones that she had already shored up, such as California and New York.
Trump, however, won electoral votes from more states. Though some of those states had lower populations, each state has at least three electoral votes (at least two Senators and one Representative are allotted per state). So while Trump won fewer individual votes overall, his margins of victory in states with smaller populations won him votes in the winner-take-all system.
If Clinton maintains the lead in the popular vote, this will be the fifth time that a presidential candidate has won the popular vote but lost the election. Here’s hoping she has Al Gore on speed dial. It can’t be a fun spot to be in.
@shelbielbostedt | sbostedt@redeyechicago.com
