U.S. Presidential elections are sprawling affairs, with mail-in voting that begins weeks ahead of Election Day on Nov. 5 and in-person voting that begins at midnight that Tuesday in the small New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch and continues until voting ends at 7 p.m. in the Hawaiian-Aleutian time zone, already the next day back east. But in the U.S. system, that popular vote doesn’t determine the outcome.
Each state gets a certain number of votes based on its size in what is called the Electoral College. Those votes are awarded on a state-by-state basis, and in all but two states – Maine and Nebraska – the winner takes all. Because many states vote dependably for Democrats or Republicans in presidential elections, the outcome usually rests on a handful of places where the election is truly competitive – the battlegrounds.
This year seven states are regarded as the battlegrounds. They include old-line manufacturing powerhouses that have had a tough transition to the 21st century economy, and fast growing southern states that used to be dependably Republican but are becoming more diverse. All seven have experienced demographic changes that may play into the outcome.
Of the 538 votes in the electoral college, the battleground states will chose 94 of them, or less than 20%.
With the help of narrow wins in Arizona, Nevada and Georgia in particular, President Joe Biden won 302 electoral college votes in 2020.
Read more at Reuters.com
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