How is an American president elected?

The American president is always very important to people's lives, both at home and elsewhere, so the result of today's voting will carry weight for everyone.

The political system of the USA has its peculiarities in terms of the selection of the head of the White House. This is because, in the first place, he is not elected directly by the voters, but by what is known as the electoral college.

When Americans go to the polls for a presidential election, they vote for a group of officials who make up the electoral college.

The word "college" refers to a group of people with a common task. They are the electors and their job is to decide on the president and vice president.

The electoral college meets every four years, a few weeks before election day.

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The number of elected officials from each state partially coincides with the size of its population. In total, there are 538 voters.

An elector represents an electoral vote, and for a candidate to be declared the winner, he needs a majority of electoral votes, or 270.

The state of California has the most electors - a total of 55 - while states such as Wyoming, Alaska and North Dakota have a minimum of three electors.

Traditionally, states allocate all of their electoral college votes to whoever wins the popular vote in the state. For example, if a candidate wins 50.1 percent of the vote in Texas, he is awarded all 38 of that state's electoral votes.

This makes it possible for a candidate to become president by winning the numbers in close races in certain states, even though he has fewer votes statewide.

It is also possible for a candidate to be the most popular among Americans, but not win enough states to secure the 270 electoral votes.

This was the case in 2016, when the then Republican candidate, Donald Trump, had almost three million votes less than the Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, but won the presidency because the electoral college gave him a majority.

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The same happened in 2000, when George W. Bush won 271 electoral votes even though the Democratic candidate, Al Gore, secured over half a million more American votes.

Before them, only three other presidents have been elected without winning a majority in the popular vote - John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Benjamin Harrison.

This all stems from the fact that when the US Constitution was drafted in 1787, a national popular vote to elect a president was virtually impossible. This is due to the size of the country and the difficulty in communication.

For this reason, the drafters of the Constitution created the electoral college, with electors chosen in each state.

But what happens if neither candidate manages to secure a majority on election day?

In this case, it is the House of Representatives that will vote for the election of the president.

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This thing, however, has happened only once, when in 1824, four candidates divided the electoral vote, denying the majority to each other.

Since now the American system is dominated by only two parties, such a thing is not expected to happen today.