So just how does a person get elected to be
the President of the United States?
Well it's all down to the electoral college.
Wait, isn't it about who gets the most votes?
The popular vote - nope!
Just ask Al Gore who won the popular vote
in 2000, but lost the electoral college.
So what is it?
It's made up of 538 electors divided up amongst
the states.
So how many electors are in each state?
Well that depends on how big the state is
- it's based on the total number of senators
and members of congress.
So Vermont has three electoral votes because
its population is just over 626,000.
California on the other hand has a whopping
55 electoral votes - its population is 38.8 million.
So each presidential candidate needs to win
a majority of the total electoral votes - the
magic number - 270.
But what happens if no one wins 270 - well
it isn't going to be pretty.
The winner of the election is then sent to
the US House of Representatives.
Each state gets one vote and whoever wins
the most, wins the White House.
But luckily that's rarely happened.
That's why you want to win the electoral college
on election day and why battle ground states
are so important.
Say what?
What's a battle ground state?
Confused?
OK, well some states in the US always tend
to vote Republican or Democrat - Idaho for
example has voted red since 1968 while California
is today a solid Democratic, or blue state.
That leaves the purple ones - the battleground
states that are up for grabs each election.
Those are the Florida's, Ohio's, Pennsylvania's
and North Carolina's.
Whoever tends to win the most battleground
states, wins the election.
So remember - on election night - whoever
wins the most electoral college votes over
270 - wins the election.
Phil Han, CNBC.
