This Tuesday (5), millions of American voters are expected to go to the polls to decide who will be the next president of the United States, in a process very different from the Brazilian one.
Even so, thousands of voters have already anticipated the date and started sending their ballots by post. Not all states offer this facility. Of the 18 that allow it, California and Washington DC stand out.
Another peculiarity is the time it takes to count the votes. In Brazil, the adoption of electronic voting machines allows the result to be known on the same day. In the United States, the investigation can take days, as assessed by The New York Timesas the count varies from state to state. If in states like Georgia the count comes out on the same day, in Nevada and Arizona, the count can take days.
Choice of the day
Under American electoral legislation, which began to be written in 1845, presidential elections must be held on the day following the first Monday in November, thus ensuring that elections are held on a Tuesday, as long as this day is not the first of the month.
READ MORE: Dollar at R$6.00 and pressure on interest rates: the contagion of the ‘Trump trade’ to Brazil
The main explanation for this choice involves the socioeconomic reality of Americans in the mid-19th century. Just as in Brazil — where holding elections on a Sunday contributes to the participation of working citizens — in the period in which the rule was created, in the United States, a large proportion of citizens were rural workers. Therefore, the beginning of November represented the most sensible choice since it is the off-season.
READ MORE: How Brazil’s 2 million immigrants could be affected if Trump returns to the White House
The decision to take place on Tuesday is another practical choice. Sundays were reserved for going to church. Wednesday was the day when farmers went to the market to sell their products. And then, Tuesday was chosen so that voters would have time to travel to the voting centers on trips that could take a few hours – even an entire day.
What, after all, is the electoral college?
But it’s not just the day the vote takes place that is different from what happens in Brazilian elections. In the United States, the election is indirect, that is, the president is not chosen by the direct vote of voters. And the country adopts the Electoral College, a system in which delegates who represent the voters of each state are chosen.
All states have a specific number of delegates, which follows a population criterion. To win, a candidate must reach a majority of the 538 Electoral College votes, that is, 270 votes.
READ MORE: Latin America braces for impact of US elections on trade and tariffs
Counting the votes of these representatives is much more complex than it seems. Within the group of delegates from each state, the majority vote will prevail. For example, if a state has five delegates, the party that forms the majority in the state takes all the votes.
As much as it may seem like mere bureaucracy, the district election system ends up having a major impact on the country’s political life. While, in countries with majority elections there are a large number of parties, democracies that adopted the district system end up concentrating power along two or three ideological lines.
Are only Trump and Kamala candidates?
Anyone who watches the news doesn’t even consider that there could be any result other than a victory for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. The reality is that there are dozens of other names in the race, such as, for example, Jill Stein, who is a doctor and is running for president for the Green Party.
Chase Oliver is a candidate for the Libertarian Party, defending arms and LGBTQ+ rights, and was elected by Rolling Stone magazine as the most influential politician of his ideology. Another who has thrown his name into contention independently is progressive professor and author Cornel West.
There was still an attempt to re-elect the surnamed Kennedy for a new term as president of the largest economy on the planet, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — nephew of the assassinated former president John F. Kennedy — suspended his candidacy in August and declared support for the Republican Donald Trump.
What are pendulum states?
Another consequence of the choice of district voting is the increase in the decision-making power of the States. Ultimately, states that are historically very Republican or very Democratic will rarely change their position from one election to the next.
The opposite of this are the swing states or swing states that, during presidential elections, do not show a clear and consistent preference for one of the two main parties (Democrat or Republican). These states alternate their support between candidates from both parties depending on the issues and candidates in each election.
As a result, they are considered decisive because, being unpredictable, they have the potential to influence the final result in the Electoral College. Therefore, they are the stages of the biggest disputes for votes.
The list of undecideds includes Nevada (with 6 votes in the electoral college), Arizona (11 votes), Wisconsin (10 votes), Michigan (15 votes), Pennsylvania (19 votes), North Carolina (16 votes) and Georgia (16 votes).
Is there a printed vote?
In addition to allowing voting by mail, each district in each American state also has the possibility of choosing how voters can cast their vote. According to the Verified Voting foundationmore than two-thirds of American voters, 68.8%, will vote with hand-marked ballots.
Another 19.6% must use some physical form of ballot generated using an electronic device. And only 11.6% will be able to vote through completely electronic systems, just like it is ugly in Brazil. Most districts that accept electronic voting are concentrated in states in the south of the country, such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Tennessee.
Result
The dispute for the highest position in the richest country on the planet has been deeply marked by irreconcilable debates on issues such as immigration, the climate crisis, geopolitical threats, and the conduct of fiscal and monetary policy — with impacts across the world.
And each new statement from the two main candidates seems to throw even more uncertainty over the result — which could take days to come out.
You can find the main news and developments of the American elections on InvestNews.
