Trump or Biden? Understand the differences in the journey of the US Presidential Election

KUALA LUMPUR: The United States Presidential Election this time recorded a difference in terms of its implementation compared to before due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the system implemented remains the same, only slightly different from that practiced in Malaysia.

Voters in the United States will decide who between Donald Trump or his Democrat challenger Joe Biden will be elected President of the United States for the next four years.

However, the most number of votes or the popular vote does not determine a candidate wins the presidency.

Instead, the candidate for the post will be determined by how many electoral votes he wins.

This was evidenced in 2016 when Donald Trump won the presidency because he had a majority of the electoral votes even though Hillary Clinton won a popular vote of nearly three million.

A total of 538 are allocated for electoral votes in the country which represents individuals who will be elected to become members of the electoral college or electoral board.

Typically, they are entrusted to vote for the United States presidential candidate who won the most votes in a state.

When voters cast their ballots for the November presidential election, they will actually elect one electoral voter from their state.

These electoral voters will then cast their votes for the presidential candidate who wins the most votes in the state.

This is what is called the electoral vote.

The number of residents in a state in the United States will determine how many electoral votes are required in the electoral board.

The state of California with the largest population in the country will have an electoral electorate of 55 people while Texas has 38 people while New York and Florida have 29 people each.

The less populated states of Alaska, Delaware, Vermont and Wyoming each have a minimum of three electoral voters on the electoral board.

A candidate needs a majority of 270 electoral votes to win the presidency of the United States.

Usually, the results of the electoral vote can be known unofficially after the popular vote of a state is known.

In the 2016 US Presidential Election, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton representing the Democrat won the popular vote beating Trump.

However, Trump won an electoral vote of 304 votes compared to Clinton who obtained 227 electoral votes.

It is because Trump won the most votes in the strongholds of the Democrat, namely Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, thus obtaining electoral votes in the three states.