U.S. Elections 2020
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And what happens if there is a draw?
The real battle could begin after November 3rd
Trump and Biden want to reach the coveted threshold of 270 electors, but in the event of a tie they will roll to the door of Congress, something that has not happened since the 19th century.
In addition, if the races are close, the decision may reach the top, as happened in 2000 when the mass early voting will also contribute to this.
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Joe Biden
Donald Trump
United States
Prof. Eitan Gilboa
Friday, October 30, 2020, 6:30 p.m.
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In the video: Biden and Trump in the US presidential race (Photo: Reuters)
The President of the United States and his deputy are the only politicians elected by all residents of the country.
The president holds the most powerful position in Western democracies.
He is the head of state (like a president in Israel), the head of the executive branch (like a prime minister in Israel), the supreme commander of the United States military forces, the head of the federal government and the leader of his party.
The structure of presidential elections in the United States is very different from the accepted patterns in democracies.
Elections in each of the 50 states of the United States are for representatives in an electoral body called the Electoral College.
The number of electors of each country is determined according to the size of its population.
The House of Representatives represents this size while the Senate has two senators from each state regardless of the number of residents.
Thus, the number of electors of each state includes the number of its deputies in the House of Representatives and two other senators.
In all, the constituency has 538 electors, representing all members of the House of Representatives, 435, and three other representatives of Washington, D.C., and a hundred other senators.
To win the presidency, one must obtain at least 270 electors.
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Trump (Photo: Reuters)
The drafters of the American Constitution shaped this strange arrangement for two reasons.
First, it was a compromise between those who wanted only Congress to elect the president and those who wanted him elected by all voters, regardless of state.
The United States was founded by colonies that wanted federal government to run the economy, security, and foreign relations, but they also feared an overly powerful president and central government.
Second, the election of a president in Congress or by all voters would give an advantage to many populous countries and neutralize the small ones.
The electorate method also allows small countries to influence the results.
Under the current system, California, which is the most populous state in the United States, sends 55 electors to the electorate, Texas has 38 electors, and New York and Florida have 29 electors.
Countries with low populations such as Montana, Wyoming, Dakota, Alaska and Vermont have only three electors - representing their two senators and the individual axis of each House of Representatives.
The number of electors is fixed, but the division into states varies according to a national population census conducted at the beginning of each decade.
The current division represents the 2010 census.
The next presidential election in 2024 has already represented the results of the current census.
Typically, a candidate who wins the majority of the electorate also wins the majority of the votes of all voters, but there were also exceptions that led to criticism of the system.
In 2000, Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, received about half a million more votes than his Republican rival, George W. Bush, who won the presidency because he had more electors in the electorate.
In the 2016 election, Democratic Hillary Clinton already received 2.8 million more votes than Trump, but he received more voters.
Changing the system requires an amendment to the constitution, which is a very complicated process, but there are bodies that are fighting for such a change.
It has a chance to materialize only if the gaps between the total number of votes of the electors and the total number of votes of all the voters appear frequently.
What will happen in a draw?
The 12th Amendment to the Constitution of 1798 states what will happen if no candidate wins 270 votes of the electorate.
The election then moves to the House of Representatives, which elects one of the three candidates who received the most electoral votes.
This situation is very rare and has only happened three times in American history: 1801, 1825, 1837.
How is a vote taken in the House of Representatives?
In the event that no candidate obtains 270 electoral votes, each state represented in the House of Representatives has only one vote.
Whoever receives 26 votes out of the votes of the 50 countries is elected president.
In the event of a tie in this vote as well, the House of Representatives continues to vote until a majority is reached in favor of one of the candidates.
Those who determine how the state votes are the local constituencies in the 50 states.
In the current situation, Republicans have a majority of 26 votes against 23 of the Democrats, and in Pennsylvania there is a draw between the two parties.
But whoever decides will be the incoming local House of Representatives and not the outgoing one.
If Trump or Baiden do not have 270 votes, and Republicans still have a majority in the states' houses of parliament, Trump will continue for a second term.
If the Democrats have a majority, Biden will be the next president.
How do you choose a vice president?
In the event of a tie in the number of electors, the Vice President is elected by the Senate, which decides between the two candidates who received the most electoral votes.
Required a majority of 51 senators.
If by January 20, 2021 the House of Representatives fails to elect a President, the Vice President is appointed Acting President until a decision is made in the House of Representatives.
Implications of early voting
The Corona crisis has led to a peak of early voting, those sent by mail or placed at special polling stations that open before the official voting day next Tuesday.
Each country sets its own rules for early voting.
In the last election of 2016, some 47 million eligible voters voted before Election Day.
The turnout in this election was 55.5%.
In the current election, already 82 million voted in the early methods.
There is a connection between early voting and the overall voting rate.
The forecast is that a new historic record will be reached that will exceed the 65% ceiling, a rate set in the 1908 election
.
A few days before next week's election day, Republicans are narrowing the gap in early votes but Democrats are still leading them.
The reasons for this are the greater number of Democrats and supporters, the fear of Corona compared to many Trump supporters who adopted his dwarfism and disdain for the plague, choose from minorities, especially blacks and Hispanics, who are unfamiliar with complicated ballots, so on election day prefer to stay home Get to the polls physically or fear Corona more than anyone.
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To the full article
The number of Democrats electing the early methods far exceeds the Republicans.
Biden (Photo: Reuters)
Peak early voting and the overall turnout may decide the election in Biden's favor.
This is why Trump has opposed a postal vote claiming it is saturated with counterfeits, and his people in different countries are trying to restrict postal voting on various and bizarre pretexts.
It is likely that if Trump loses he will require repeated checks and counts of the ballot papers.
This is a process that can take a long time and court interventions up to the Supreme Court.
The 2000 election was decided by the result in Florida by only 537 votes in favor of George W. Bush Jr. who was then running against Bill Clinton's deputy, Al Gore.
The Supreme Court refrained from intervening in the outcome and thus upheld Bush's victory.
Trump justified the speedy and unusual process of appointing a new Supreme Court justice, Amy Connie Bratt, by saying he might need his decision in legal hearings related to the election results.
If the results show a decisive advantage for one of the candidates, it is likely to be difficult to challenge them.
In any case, the president-elect must swear allegiance and enter the White House on January 20, 2021.
Until then, the process must be completed and the identity of the president determined.
Prof. Eitan Gilboa is a senior lecturer and expert on the United States at Bar-Ilan University and a senior researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
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