Question

Explain the role of the electoral college in electing the US president, and compare two instances, one from the 19th century and one from the 21st century, in which the president was elected despite a discrepancy between the popular vote results and the electoral college results

Answer 1

while electing a president there are popular votes which are the ballots submitted by individual citizens. there is also a second vote called an electoral vote, and each state is worth a certain amount of electoral vote. when the popular votes for one state are counted, the candidate who won the majority of the votes for the state takes all the electoral votes for that state. This process repeats for each state until all of the electoral votes for each state are counted, the winner is then decided by the candidate who first reaches 270 electoral votes. Due to this system, there may sometimes be a discrepancy in the popular votes and the electoral votes, an example of this is in 2016 when the candidate Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but the candidate Donald Trump won the electoral vote ultimately resulting in Donald Trump winning the presidency.

Answer 2

The electoral college is the body that actually elects the U.S. President. The United States is a federal republic, and citizens elect the president indirectly.

Step-by-step explanation:

Each state grants a number of electors proportional to the population of the state on the basis of winner-takes-all, that is to say, the candidate who wins the plurality of votes in a state, takes all the electors from that state. Only two states have a somewhat different mechanism: Nebraska and Maine.

Electors from each state meet and form the electoral college. The candidate who wins the most electoral votes takes the presidency.

The elections of Andrew Jackson in 1824, and of Donald Trump in 2016, are two examples of presidents who won the electoral college despite not winning the popular vote.