What is the difference between general vote and electoral vote

After the primaries and caucuses, each major party, Democrat and Republican, holds a national convention to select a Presidential nominee. The Presidential candidates campaign throughout the country to win the support of the general population.

When people cast their vote, they are actually voting for a group of people called electors. The number of electors each state gets is equal to its total number of Senators and Representatives in Congress.

A total of electors form the Electoral College. Each elector casts one vote following the general election. The candidate who gets votes or more wins.

An election for president of the United States happens every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The most recent presidential election was November 3, The election process begins with primary elections and caucuses. These are two methods that states use to select a potential presidential nominee Nominee: the final candidate chosen by a party to represent them in an election.

In general, primaries use secret ballots for voting. Caucuses are local gatherings of voters who vote at the end of the meeting for a particular candidate. Then it moves to nominating conventions , during which political parties each select a nominee to unite behind. During a political party convention, each presidential nominee also announces a vice presidential running mate. The candidates then campaign across the country to explain their views and plans to voters.

They may also participate in debates with candidates from other parties. During the general election General Election: a final election for a political office with a limited list of candidates. But the tally of those votes—the popular vote—does not determine the winner. Instead, presidential elections use the Electoral College. To win the election, a candidate must receive a majority of electoral votes.

In the event no candidate receives a majority, the House of Representatives chooses the president and the Senate chooses the vice president. Summer of the year before an election through spring of the election year — Primary and caucus Caucus: a statewide meeting held by members of a political party to choose a presidential candidate to support.

January to June of election year — States and parties hold primaries Primary: an election held to determine which of a party's candidates will receive that party's nomination and be their sole candidate later in the general election.

In Nebraska and Maine, the State winner receives two electors and the winner of each congressional district who may be the same as the overall winner or a different candidate receives one elector. This system permits Nebraska and Maine to award electors to more than one candidate. Electors do not vote twice for President.

They are the only ones who actually vote for President, which they do at the meeting of the electors the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their States. Some States, however, require electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote. These pledges fall into two categories—electors bound by State law and those bound by pledges to political parties.

Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not require that electors be completely free to act as they choose and therefore, political parties may extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties' nominees. Some State laws provide that so-called "faithless electors" may be subject to fines or may be disqualified for casting an invalid vote and be replaced by a substitute elector.

The Supreme Court decided in that States can enact requirements on how electors vote. The compact will go into effect when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes An updated list of all the states that have passed a state-wide bill to enact the national popular vote can be found here.

When in effect, states that are in the compact will guarantee their electoral votes go to the winner of the national popular vote, guaranteeing the president of the United States will be elected by popular vote. Battleground states are those that are a toss-up to either candidate. Often with many electoral votes at stake, these are where candidates spend most of their time and resources competing for votes. These states have a lot of power and can decide the outcome of a presidential election.

Critics of the Electoral College claim it gives outsized power to small states because they are guaranteed three electoral votes despite lower population size. The makeup of the United States has changed a lot since the implementation of the Electoral College. Because of the distribution of electoral votes, some believe the Electoral College actually gives an advantage to some states.

Meanwhile, people in states that have a large population but are not battleground states lose the value of their own vote because electoral votes are already decided and there is less incentive for candidates to spend time campaigning in that state. This perception of a loss of the value of their vote can decrease voter turnout. The real flaw in the system is that it varies wildly from state-to-state. Meaning that individual voters in some states hold a huge amount more real power than others.

Voters in Wyoming have nearly four times as much influence as Californians do, for instance. Suddenly every resident in Rhode Island has almost double the power compared to someone living in Montana. In the most extreme case, npr reported that it would be possible to win a presidential election with just 23 per cent of the popular vote. In , this skewed system has been wholeheartedly shaping the nature of the campaigns. In the first four weeks of campaigning, candidates focused attention on only 10 closely divided battleground states during while ignoring 40 states, according to Fair Vote analysis.

The process of elector selection naturally gives more weight to lightly populated states where Republicans excel.

What's more, report Slate, the winner-take-all system that most states use to award electors also leads Democrats to waste a lot of votes running up the score in big states like California, while losing in small states. This means that an electoral overhaul in favour of the popular vote could tip the balance in favour of Democrats , in a way previously unseen in US politics.

It would take a constitutional amendment to dissolve the Electoral College; but considering how difficult it is to pass constitutional changes, this is highly unlikely to happen.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact NPVIC is an agreement that emerged in among a group of US states to award all of their Electoral College votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the popular vote nationally, as opposed to in the state.