Six steps to the White House

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How much do you really know about the presidential election in the US? We present a step-by-step guide to what happens when, how and why.

For the past year, the United States has been getting ready for the 2020 presidential election. In any election year, it’s hard to avoid reporting about the process. This year, the media coverage has been even more intense because of the controversial politics of the current US president, Donald Trump. Many Americans support his politics and believe he has kept his promise to “Make America Great Again.” Other Americans believe he’s the country’s worst enemy. So,will the Republican president be reelected — or will the Democrats defeat him? No one can say, but in order for you to be able to follow the election, we have prepared this stepbystep calendar of the election year. We also answer six common questions, so you can understand what’s going on. The question we cannot, of course, answer, is how the coronavirus pandemic will affect the election.

JANUARY TO JUNE STEP 1 Primaries and caucuses

Primary elections and caucuses take place across the US from January to June of the election year.

Primary elections are run by state and local governments to elect nominees for presidential candidates. In primaries,

voters go to a polling station and vote, like in any other election.

A few states hold caucuses instead of primaries. The main difference between a caucus and a primary is that a caucus is an election held by an individual political party, not by the state. In caucuses, party members and supporters vote among themselves.

JULY AND AUGUST STEP 2 The national conventions

In July and August of the election year, the two main political parties — the Democrats and the Republicans — hold their

national conventions. Here, each party announces its presidential candidate, and that candidate announces their choice for vice president. The race, as they say, is on.

THE RUN-UP TO ELECTION DAY STEP 3 The campaigns

Following the national conventions, each party’s candidate campaigns across the country, traveling to different states and speaking to the people there in order to get their vote on Election Day.

THE FIRST TUESDAY AFTER NOVEMBER 1 STEP 4 Election Day — popular votes and electoral votes

Every four years, Americans who are 18 or over and eligible to vote elect a president and their vice president. This happens on the first Tuesday after November 1 of the election year (this year, on November 3). Each American gets one vote for the presidential candidate. On Election Day, these individual, popular votes in the 50 states and Washington, DC — the District of Columbia — are counted.

However, who becomes president is not actually determined by the popular votes. Instead, the candidate who gets the most votes in that state gets all of the state’s electoral votes for president.

What does it take to become president?

In order to become president, candidates must be at least 35 years old, a natural-born US citizen, and have lived in the US for at least 14 years.

Why vote on a Tuesday?

In the past, according to federal law, the presidential election in each state had to be held within a 34-day period before the first Wednesday in December. In the 1840s, though, the Morse telegraph came into use — and Congress was afraid that the spread of news about election results would influence other states’ elections if they were held on different days. So, in 1845, Congress agreed on a single day for the whole country: the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The Tuesday might have been chosen because farmers often needed a whole day to get to their polling station. With Election Day on a Tuesday, they could go to church on Sunday and still make it to the polling station on time.

And herein lies the crux: The candidate who wins the popular vote does not necessarily become president. In 2016, for example, Hillary Clinton got 2.9 million more popular votes than Donald Trump. In spite of this, she did not win the election — because she did not win the majority of the states’ electoral votes. But what exactly are these electoral votes?

As we explained above, when Americans go to the polls on Election Day, their votes do not directly elect the president. Instead, the voters’ will is reflected by the vote of electors selected by the states. But each state is different: California, for example, has a population of almost 40 million people, whereas Kansas has only just under three million. That’s why each state gets a number of electors based on the size of its population.

This sounds fair and logical, but it is also the reason why a candidate who won the popular vote can end up losing the election, depending on which states they won and how many electors those states have. Let’s take a closer look at how this is possible.

Each state is divided up into congressional districts based on its population. The number of electors in a state is equal to the number of districts it has, plus the number of its senators, which is always two. So, the bigger the population of a state, the more districts it has — and that means more electors and more votes. North Carolina, for example, has 13 districts and 15 electors; California has 53 districts and 55 electors; and Kansas has 4 districts and 6 electors.

That is why winning in states such as Texas, Florida, and New York — all of which have large populations — is so important to the candidates. Those three states have a total of 96 electoral votes. By contrast, the total number of electoral votes of South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, and Delaware — seven states altogether — is only 21.

As a consequence, it’s not the number of states the candidate wins that matters, but rather which of the states the candidate wins and how many votes those states have.

The goal on Election Day is to win 270 electoral votes, which is the majority of the national total of 538 electoral votes.

THE MONDAY AFTER THE SECOND WEDNESDAY IN DECEMBER STEP 5 The Electoral College

The Electoral College is a body of electors that forms every four years for the sole purpose of electing the president and vice president. However, it’s important to understand that the Electoral College never actually meets as one body, and that the term describes more a concept or a pro cess than an actual group of people.

Electors meet, generally in their respective state capitals, on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December (this year, on December 14) to formally cast

their votes. It’s interesting to note that, in the history of the Electoral College system, there have been almost 180 rogue or

faithless electors — that is, electors who didn’t vote according to the pledge they had made to vote for their party’s chosen candidate. And even though this has never altered the outcome of an election, you might want to keep in mind that the winner on Election Day is not officially confirmed until Congress counts the electoral votes — on January 6 of the following year. If a presidential candidate has received 270 or more electoral votes, that person is declared president-elect.

JANUARY 20 OF THE FOLLOWING YEAR STEP 6 Inauguration Day

On Inauguration Day, the presidentelect is sworn in, or inaugurated, on the steps of the Capitol as the next president of the United States. The US and the rest of the world must wait to see what the next four years will bring — for better or for worse.