What happens if the United States election is close?

If this holds up, along with Florida and her ‘firewall states, ‘ it would put Clinton at 323 electoral votes.

In 1787 the Electoral College was established.

How did the Electoral College start?

Voters go to the polls on 8 November in America’s much talked about presidential election.

Still, there is the ever-so-slight possibility that Hillary’s magic number is no longer 270. The Constitution mandates that electors not be a person holding a federal office.

Twenty-one states don’t require their electors to go along with the popular vote, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

I have not shared my opinions on this election except with my closest friends and family. Although Gore had more votes nationwide, Bush won the presidency with (271 electoral votes compared to Gore’s 266)[https://www.uvm.edu/~dguber/POLS125/articles/pomper.htm].

All eight or so of the “lean” states can be considered battlegrounds, although Florida (29), OH (18) and North Carolina (15) get the most attention, because they have been especially close in recent elections and have large numbers of delegates. Although an elector could, in principle, change his or her vote (and a few actually have over the years), doing so is rare. At the other end of the spectrum, lightly populated Alaska, Delaware, Vermont and Wyoming have only three electors each, as does the District of Columbia.

The magic number: A candidate needs at least 270 electoral votes – half the total plus one – to become president.

California, New York and mostly states in the West and Eastern coasts have nearly consistently voted Democrat while many states in between, usually referred to as Middle America have consistently voted Republ-ican. ME has four electoral votes, two for the senators and two for the representatives in each congressional district.

The real voting for president takes place on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December, when electors meet in their state capitals to cast their votes. The results are announced before both Houses of Congress on January 6 – two weeks before the president-elect is sworn into office. There was also one faithless elector in each of the following elections: 1948, 1956, 1960, 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1988.

Swing states, electoral votes, different time zones…

It was seen as a compromise between the election of the president by a vote in Congress and the election of the president by a popular vote.The Electoral College is made up of electors from each state based on the number of members of Congress in each state.

Electoral votes are not cast automatically on some giant scoreboard. So why isn’t ME a winner-take-all state? The responsibility for choosing the president shifted to the House of Representatives, where each state delegation cast one vote. The decision stays there until one candidate receives 26 of the 50 votes. The House must choose from among the top three finishers.

But in a very close count, such as the hair’s breadth showdown in 2000, a faithless elector or two might be enough to change the outcome – or at least to throw the contest into the House. Jefferson and Adams were named president by the Electoral College procedural following an election.

Also, those electors are not required to vote for specific people, but it would be highly unlikely they don’t vote for who they have pledged to support.

The whole process of the presidential election can be divided into four phases, namely, the primary elections, the nominating conventions, the presidential nominee campaigns and the national vote. Ford became president when Nixon resigned following the Watergate scandal.