By: Ghazal Alyazidi

The Last 3rd of November was considered a turning point in the life of the American people in particular and the world in general. On this day, the vote for the U.S. presidential race for 2020 was declared over, And the announcement of the name of the elected American president came out, this year’s election was between The Current President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, and the Democratic Party candidate Joseph Biden and former Democratic Vice President Barack Obama, the winner of this year’s election will be the forty-sixth president of the United States of America, after independence in 1776, will be for a four-year presidential term, beginning on the 20th January 2021 until the 20th January 2025.

It is important to know that the popular vote that takes place every four years and at the end of every election race in November, scheduled for the first Tuesday after the first two days of November, and this year on 3rd of November, was not only date for the end of the presidential race, And the announcement of the name of the winning candidate for the presidency, but it is also a declaration of the end of three elections and the announcement of the names of the winning candidates. For example, there is a presidential race among candidates for political parties, in addition to the electoral race of members of Congress in both houses, the Parliament, is the lower house of the United States National Legislature, and all its members are re-elected

Also, two-thirds of the senate, the highest chamber of the US national legislature, are elected. Each of these three elections has its own advertising campaigns that have lots of expenses.

Also, it should be mentioned that, although the election campaigns (for the three elections) and the candidates’ gatherings with their supporters in the 2020 presidential race have not been as active as in previous election campaigns in the past years, due to precautionary measures to limit the spread of Virus Covid-19. However, the cost of the last election campaigns reached about US$14 billion dollars. This is why the three elections this year were classified as the highest in cost in the history of the American election campaigns. This number is half higher than the 2018 election campaign, wherein the 2016 campaign cost nearly US$6.5 billion, of which Hillary Clinton has a share of US$1.4 billion dollars, exceeding Donald Trump’s US$957 million campaign-cost amount, which already exceeded previous campaigns. 70% of this amount has been spent on advertising. Money has an undeniable role in supporting electoral campaigns, but it is not more important than the candidate’s direct or indirect communication with his voters. Here lies the real role of optimal use of media in supporting the candidate.

It is worth mentioning that the election results are always unexpected, even when the majority of votes agree on a voter, the results may be totally different from expectations. For example, the result of the last U.S. election vote in 2016 was unexpected for many inside and outside of America, as Donald Trump did not engage in political or governmental action before announcing his presidency for the United States of America.

Republican candidate Donald Trump has defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton after winning 274 of the 538 electoral college votes, which suffices for one candidate to win at least 270 votes to win the US presidency. Despite Hillary Clinton won a popular vote of nearly 2.5 million votes more than Donald Trump, however, Trump was the winner of the presidential election, due to the “Electoral College” system.

What happened in the 2016 Election is similar to what had happened in the 2000 Election. As in the 2000 election, the Republican candidate George Bush Jr. the candidate of the Republican Party won the election despite getting votes less than his rival, Democratic Party candidate Al Gore, with a difference of 540 thousand votes. George Bush, Jr., got the majority of the 271 votes of the Electoral College to become President of the United States.

Also, the 1888 U.S. presidential election has witnessed a similar winning situation as a result of the voting of the members of the Electoral College, Republican candidate Benjamin Harrison winning the presidency over Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland because he won the vote of the Electoral College and gathering 233 votes of the Electoral College against 168 votes for Grover Cleveland. In-spite of Grover Cleveland won the Popular vote.

The Electoral College is an official electoral organization whose task is to elect the Executive President and Vice-President of the United States of America and to reconstitute this every four-years, it can be said that the Electoral College is an example of indirect elections, meaning that the American people are not actually the ones who decide their elected president through direct voting. Rather, the electoral college members vote in the November vote, who also choose the presidential candidate for December Voting to several factors.

In other words, during the popular vote, in November, American voters through their vote give a hint to members of the Electoral College in states that follow the popular vote to choose a presidential candidate, who is their preferred presidential candidate to vote for later in December.

According to the US Constitution, US federal law does not provide that members of the Electoral College must vote according to the result of the popular vote or the candidate of their political party, but this differs from state to another, as some states require members of their electoral college to vote for a presidential candidate based on the result of a popular vote, such as Washington, Colorado, and Hawaii. While there are other states which ask members of the Electoral College to vote according to the choice of the ruling party in the state, such as Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma.

As of January 2021, The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) will be under implementation. And It is an agreement between a group of states in addition to the District of Columbia to grant all the votes of the state electoral college to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in all states and the District of Columbia. This law aims to ensure that the chosen candidate is agreed upon by the majority of the American people. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have accepted this agreement through January 2021. These states have 196 votes in the Electoral College, equivalent to 36% of the electorate and 73% of the 270 votes needed to make the presidential candidate likely to win, and the number of states accepting the agreement is expected to increase over time.

The principle of the Electoral College arose at the Constitutional Conference held in Philadelphia in 1787, with the attendance of 13 representative members of states at that time, And It was the same conference that the American constitutional had been set. Due to the wide American landscape, it was not easy for American voters to participate in the presidential vote, because of the difficulty of movement and the poor means of communication. Therefore, the decision by the Constitution establishers to create the so-called Electoral College was reached, so that the American people would be given a greater chance to participate in the voting in the presidential elections and would not be confined only to the nobility or politics. This decision has had a positive impact in all states, especially the smallest, because it is confirming their political participation and opinions to decision-making centers.

Each state elects its members for a four-year term, according to its own electoral system, and their date for a presidential vote is on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November in the last year of the US current president’s presidency, called Super Tuesday. November was unanimously chosen and agreed to let all the American people have the election right in all states in 1845, before that the election was held on different dates in a number of states, and it was always held after the harvest period, and enough time before the snowstorms start in winter, which means that voters from farmers are not fully preoccupied. People of the cold states are allowed to vote, in addition, Tuesday was chosen so that voters do not have to travel on Sunday to vote, which will prevent them from attending the mass.

Each state has a certain number of votes in the electoral college, proportional to its population, the same number of its representatives in the two Senate and the Parliament. For example, California is one of the largest states in population with 55 votes, while Vermont has only three, which is the specified number for each small state.

All states have the advantage of counting all electoral college votes according to the majority vote in them. Meaning that when more than half of the electoral college members in a state vote for a candidate, then all the votes of the electoral college members in that state go to that candidate in the total vote. Except for The States of Maine And Nebraska, those two states have an exception of the previous principle, in which the votes of electoral college members are counted according to the percentage of votes for each candidate.

In conclusion, what many do not know is that despite the announcement of the name of the winning presidential candidate for the US presidency in November, the presidential election did not end until the members of the Electoral College returned to their votes and approved it in December when they meet on Monday after the second Wednesday in December, and it corresponded to 14th of December for this election, and there was a possibility that the named candidate may lose, and his rival becomes the next president. One of these possibilities is that the representatives of the electoral college may change the name they have voted for, as the US constitution does not provide that the representatives of the electoral college vote for the winning candidate in the state in which he won the votes, nor does it provide that the representatives of the electoral college vote for the party leader they follow. On December 14, delegates officially re-vote to elect a president of the United States and adopt their final nominations that came as a confirmation of Joseph Biden’s victory, after which the US Congress approves the results of the vote on January 6, before the inauguration of the winning candidate, and take office on January 20, 2021. Where they had an opportunity to change their previous choice and choose the other candidate. The other possibility is to change the name of the winning candidate in the presidential elections, to prove the forgery of the elections, as this year’s elections were marred by accusations of impartiality due to voting by mail, this matter is circulating after the White House announced the opening of an investigation due to news of security breaches that affected the electronic voting system. Accusations indicate that the competing parties are responsible for it, as a form of skepticism that the announced result may not reflect the true desire of the American electorate.

 A writer in International Relations and International Organizations *

@G_Alyazidi