Washington, United States:

When political outsider Donald Trump defied polls and expectations by defeating Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election, he called the victory “beautiful.”

Not everyone saw it that way, given that Democrat Clinton had received nearly three million more votes nationally than her Republican rival. Non-Americans were particularly perplexed by the idea of ​​the second highest number of votes being crowned president.

But Trump had done what the American system requires: winning enough states, sometimes by very narrow margins, to surpass the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.

Now, as the 2024 electoral showdown between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris approaches, the rules of this enigmatic and, for some, outdated system are coming back to center stage.

Why an electoral college?

The 538 members of the U.S. Electoral College meet in their respective state capitals after the quadrennial presidential election to decide the winner.

A presidential candidate must obtain an absolute majority of “voters” – or 270 out of 538 – to win.

The system has its origins in the US Constitution of 1787, establishing the rules for indirect first-past-the-post presidential elections.

The country’s founding fathers viewed the system as a compromise between direct presidential elections by popular vote and election by members of Congress – an approach rejected as insufficiently democratic.

Because many states naturally lean Republican or Democratic, presidential candidates focus heavily on the handful of “swing” states on which the election will likely turn – almost ignoring some large states such as California, on the left, and Texas on the right.

Over the years, hundreds of amendments have been proposed in Congress with the aim of changing or abolishing the Electoral College. None succeeded.

Trump’s victory in 2016 reignited the debate. And if the 2024 race is the hotter election that most polls predict, the Electoral College will surely come back into focus.

Who are the 538?

Most are local elected officials or party leaders, but their names do not appear on the ballot papers.

Each state has as many electors as it has members in the U.S. House of Representatives (a number depending on the state’s population) and the Senate (two in each state, regardless of its size).

California, for example, has 54 electors; Texas has 40; and sparsely populated Alaska, Delaware, Vermont and Wyoming have only three each.

The US capital, Washington, also has three electors, although it has no voting members of Congress.

The Constitution leaves it up to the states to decide how their electors’ votes should be cast. In all but two states (Nebraska and Maine, which allocate some electors by congressional district), the candidate who wins the most votes theoretically wins all electors in that state.

A controversial institution

In November 2016, Trump won 306 electoral votes, far more than the 270 needed.

The extraordinary situation of losing the popular vote but winning the White House was not unprecedented.

Five presidents have thus assumed office, the first being John Quincy Adams in 1824.

More recently, the 2000 election featured an epic conflict in Florida between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.

Gore won nearly 500,000 more votes nationally, but when Florida — ultimately through intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court — went to Bush, it pushed his Electoral College total to 271 and a victory by a whisker.

Real vote or simple formality?

Nothing in the Constitution requires voters to vote one way or another.

If some states asked them to respect the popular vote and they did not do so, they were subject to a simple fine. But in July 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that states could impose sanctions on these “faithless electors.”

To date, faithless electors have never determined the outcome of American elections.

Electoral College schedule

Electors will gather in their state capitols on December 17 and vote for president and vice president. U.S. law states that they “meet and vote on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December.”

On Jan. 6, 2025, Congress will meet to certify the winner — a closely watched event this cycle, four years after a mob of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol to try to block the certification.

But there is a difference. Last time, Republican Vice President Mike Pence, as Senate President, was responsible for overseeing the certification. Defying heavy pressure from Trump and the crowd, he certified Biden’s victory.

This time, the president of the Senate – overseeing what would normally be the pro forma certification – will be none other than the current vice president: Kamala Harris.

On January 20, the new president will be sworn in.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)