2016 United States presidential election Tuesday November 08,2016

 

The United States presidential election of 2016, scheduled for Tuesday, November 8, 2016, will be the 58th quadrennial U.S. presidential election.

Voters will select presidential electors who in turn will elect a new president and vice president through the Electoral College.

The term limits established in the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents the incumbent, President Barack Obama, from running for a third term.

The series of presidential primary elections and caucuses are scheduled to take place between February and June 2016.

This nominating process is also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots for a slate of delegates to a political party’s nominating convention, who then in turn elect their party’s presidential nominee

Eligibility to run for US Presidential Election

Article 2 of the United States Constitution describes that for a person to be elected and serve as President of the United States, the people must be a born citizen of the United States, at least 35 years old, and a resident of the United States for a period of no less than 14 years

Candidates for the presidency seek the nomination of one of the various political parties of the United States, in which case each party elect a method (like a primary election) to choose the candidate the party deems best suited to run for the position

The primary elections are usually indirect elections where voters cast ballots for a slate of party delegates pledged to a particular candidate

The party’s delegates then officially nominate a candidate to run on the party’s behalf

The general election in November is also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots for a slate of members of the Electoral College; these electors in turn directly elect the President and Vice President.

Method of electing United State President & Vice-President

Who elects the president of the United States?
United States presidential election. The election of the President and the Vice President of the United States is an indirect vote in which citizens cast ballots for a slate of members of the U.S. Electoral College; these electors in turn directly elect the President and Vice President

What is Electoral College? How it Work?

Electoral College (United States): United States Electoral College
The United States Electoral College is the institution that elects the President and Vice President of the United States after every four years

Citizens of the United States do not directly elect the president or the vice president; instead, these voters directly elect designated intermediaries called “electors,” who almost always have pledged to vote for particular presidential and vice presidential candidates (though unpledged electors are possible) and who are themselves selected according to the particular laws of each state

Electors are apportioned to each of the 50 states as well as to the District of Columbia (also known as Washington, D.C.)

The number of electors in each state is equal to the number of members of Congress to which the state is entitled, while the Twenty-third Amendment grants the District of Columbia the same number of electors as the least populous state, currently three

Therefore, in total, there are currently 538 electors, corresponding to the 435 members of the House of Representatives and 100 senators, plus the three additional electors from the District of Columbia.
Except for the electors in Maine and Nebraska, electors are elected on a “winner-take-all” basis

That is, all electors pledged to the presidential candidate who wins the most votes in a state become electors for that state. Maine and Nebraska use the “congressional district method”, selecting one elector within each congressional district by popular vote and selecting the remaining two electors by a statewide popular vote

Although no elector is required by federal law to honor a pledge, there have only been very few occasions when an elector voted contrary to a pledge

The Twelfth Amendment, in specifying how a president and vice president are elected, requires each elector to cast one vote for president and another vote for vice president

The candidate that receives an absolute majority of electoral votes (currently 270) for the office of president or of vice president is elected to that office

The Twelfth Amendment provides for what happens if the Electoral College fails to elect a president or vice president. If no candidate receives a majority for president, then the House of Representatives will select the president, with each state delegation (instead of each representative) having only one vote

If no candidate receives a majority for vice president, then the Senate will select the vice president, with each senator having one vote

On four occasions, most recently in 2000, the Electoral College system has resulted in the election of a candidate who did not receive the most popular votes in the election