Nov 8, 2016 - Did you know: The System of US Presidential Election

The Presidential election in the US is an indirect election with few specifics and therefore it seems to be quite complicated for non US citizens. This means that the citizens do not directly vote for a presidential candidate as most people outside the US believe. Instead, US citizens vote for a person in their state (Elector) who pledged to vote for a particular candidate later in the year. So how it works in a nutshell:

• The United States Electoral College is the body that elects the President and Vice President
• The USA is a country composed by 50 states and 1 federal district
• Each state has a different number of districts based on population.
• The number of Electors in each state is equal to the number of districts + 2 senators. This gives 435 +100 Electors
• Additional 3 Electors are granted to District of Columbia.

Are you still able to follow me up to now? Congratulations! So now we know we have 538 Electors in the US Electoral College. But how exactly are they selected? Now comes the tricky part…

• Almost all states (except Main and Nebraska) choose Electors on a “winner-take-all” bases. This basically means even if there is a close win for a candidate, this candidate will receive all Electors of the given state – Note: no Elector is required by federal law to honour a pledge to a candidate.
• Main (4 Electors) and Nebraska (5 Electors) use the “Congressional District Method” which means that each Elector within each Congressional District is selected by popular vote. The remaining 2 Electors are voted by a state wide popular vote.
• The Candidate who receives an absolute majority of electoral votes (currently 270) for the office of president (or vice president) is elected to the office.

OK, but what will happen if none of the Candidates will receive absolute majority?

• If the Electoral College fails to elect a president than the House of Representatives will select the president, with each state delegation having only one vote (instead of each representative)
• If no candidate receives a majority for vice president, then the Senate will select the vice president, with each senator having one vote.

The custom:

The Ellectoral college will vote for the president in mid December (on 18th of December 2016) however the votes are counted officaly by the Congress at the beginning of January when it will also officially announce who will become the resident of the White House.

What to watch:

The state with the highest numbers of Electors is California (55 Electors) where almost always the candidate of democrats wins. On the other hand another big state Texas (38 Electors) has almost always republican majority. However there are states were voters tend to swing from one party to another. These states could be crucial for ensuring victory therefore often candidates tend to spend most of the last days of the campaign in these states. For the 2016 election the so called swing states are Virginia (13), Colorado (9), Iowa (6), New Hampshire (4), Florida (29), Nevada (6) and Ohio (18).

I hope this help, but still it will be a hot mess out there in the middle of the week. So always remember to watch your risk and be consistent

Mr. Tech Man

DISCLAIMER: This material was created for informational purposes only and represents the Land of Trading team’s view of the past and current economic and capital market environment. It is not an investment advice and should not be viewed that way at all, and the creators of this material cannot be held liable for any potential losses resulting from trading, where despite this disclaimer someone would consider this material as an investment advice. All rights reserved ©2016. 

Contact: landoftradingATgmailDOTcom, Blog: landoftrading.blogspot.com