How the ‘winner-takes-all’ system works and why it is key in US elections: every vote is decisive

With the count already underway, everything indicates that the presidential elections in the United States They will be very close and will have an especially close outcome: it will be a minimal difference in certain states those who tip the balance in favor of the vice president Kamala Harris or the former president donald trump.

One of the keys to the elections is in the complex US electoral systemwhich will be decisive in granting victory to one of the two candidates, even if he has fewer votes than his rival: it is one of the particularities of the system’winner-takes-all‘, for which a single vote in a specific state can end up deciding the presidency.

Citizens vote to decide which candidate their delegates will support in the Electoral College

The first thing to keep in mind is that the American electoral system establishes that The presidential election is carried out through electoral delegates: each state is assigned a number of electoral delegates based on its demographic weight (its census), and The citizens of each territory vote to decide which candidate their delegates will support in the Electoral College, the body that all of them form after the elections. This collegiate body is the responsible for formally electing the President (although the media, with their prediction models and approximations, do so on election night itself).

In that Electoral College, which meets months after the election in a joint session on Capitol Hill from Washington DC, delegates convey their state’s support for one of the candidates. It is made up of 538 delegates, so the majority is at 270: The candidate who reaches that number is designated President of the United States.

“The winner takes all”: one vote can decide an entire state

The key to this entire system is in the norm’winner takes all‘, the great particularity of American elections: unlike in Spain (where there is a proportional system), in the US this majority system in which, as its English name indicates, ‘the winner takes all’.

What does this mean? That The candidate who wins the vote in a state, even by a single vote, takes all the electoral delegates of that State. For example, if Harris beats Trump by a single vote in California, she takes the 55 electoral delegates from that State.

The winner does not have to be the candidate with the most votes

This system seeks, in theory, balance the demographic weight with the influence of all States in the election of the next president. Besides, The system allows situations in which the candidate with the most votes fails to win the presidency by not having enough delegates in the Electoral College.

For example, suppose that ‘candidate A’ wins three states with 30 electoral delegates by a single vote, while ‘candidate B’ wins four states with 29 electoral delegates by millions of votes. Well, although ‘candidate B’ has the support of four states and several million more voters, ‘candidate A’ would be the winner of the elections, since he has more electoral delegates.

This assumption has occurred several times in North American history: most recently, in 2016, when Hillary Clinton got 3 million more votes than Donald Trumpbut the magnate achieved 304 electoral delegates compared to the Democrat’s 227. Trump managed to win more states, even though they had fewer seats, even though Clinton won the popular vote and in the most populated states.

Nebraska, Maine and Washington DC, the exceptions

There are only two States in which this majority system does not exist: Nebraska and Mainein which delegates are distributed proportionallyas in the Spanish electoral system: in the last elections, for example, Nebraska distributed its five electoral delegates, granting 4 to the Republicans and 1 to the Democrats, while Maine did the same, distributing 3 to the Democrats and 1 to the Republicans .

It is also an exception D.C.: Although it is not a State itself, the American capital has 3 electoral votes, as established in the United States Constitution.

How much is each state ‘worth’ in US elections?

The number of electoral delegates of each State, which is equal to the sum of its congressmen and senators of said State, It is established based on the population census from each territory in each electoral period, always adding a total of 538 delegates:

Peter’s Henar

Critics defend the importance of the popular vote and proportionality

Although in theory The system seeks to balance the demographics and weight of the statescritics of the system winner-takes-all They argue that in the end the entire weight of the elections falls on the ‘swing states‘those ‘hinge states’ that do not have a defined trend and can opt for one candidate or another. Criticism alleges that the candidates focus on these states and neglect the vote of other territories with the most defined vote, which would discourage electoral participation.

But the great criticism focuses on the possibility that the system gives that the winner could be the candidate with the fewest votes: the system means that just one vote can define the entire decision-making power of a state and, therefore, suppress any effect of millions of voters of the party losing in that state. Given this distortion of representation, there are some alternative proposals, such as a system proportional to use or that the winner is simply whoever has the most votes in the entire country.

However, there is no expectation of changing a system in place since the founding of the countrysy that, according to several authors such as Maurice Duverger, tends to encourage dominance of the two-party system.