This year’s presidential election has been the only thing on people’s minds the past few weeks. Candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris debated and rallied to win over the American people. Prairie Ridge also was a part of this rigorous process with a mock election with a total of 484 students voting.
In 47 states, people were allowed to vote early at various participating locations. Prairie Ridge students also voted before Election Day, but most students aren’t necessarily educated on the actual election process.
Although early voting is more common than prior to the pandemic, many Americans prefer to vote on Election Day. The New York Times reported early voting was lower in this year’s election than in the election between Joseph Biden and Donald Trump in 2020. As stated in the article, “many states made early voting easier that year because of the pandemic, but over the last four years some states have passed laws that [made] it harder for voters to cast ballots early in this election.” Overall, according to NBC News, over 88 million early in-person and mail-in ballots were cast, being made up of 41% registered Democrats and 38% registered Republicans.
Election day voting took place on November 5th, 2024. The U.S. Mission to the OSCE reported a total of about 143 million U.S. citizens voted in this year’s election, including both early voting and election day voting. Citizens’ votes go towards their states’ Electoral College votes, providing a number of Electoral votes to be cast for one party from each state.
The Electoral College contains 538 electors based on the population of the state. For example, California has a larger population than Vermont, so California has 54 Electoral votes and Vermont has only 3 Electoral votes. Those votes are decided by the majority of the population’s alignment in the individual states. In this election, California ended up with 57.6% of their population voting for Kamala Harris, making their Electoral votes go towards her campaign.
At Prairie Ridge, the vote was decided by popular vote between all four candidates: Donald Trump (Republican Party), Kamala Harris (Democratic Party), Jill Stein (Green Party), and Chase Oliver (Libertarian Party).
After the PR votes came in, Trump won 55.2% of the popular vote, winning the 2024 mock Presidential Election. The winner in this case was chosen differently than the actual president because PR chose based on the popular vote and the US chose based on the Electoral vote.
To win the actual United States election, a candidate needs 270 total Electoral votes. Trump surpassed this number before all states had finished their ballot counting and not enough votes left for Harris to overcome Trump’s.
In the end, Trump won with a total of 312 Electoral College votes, spanning 31 states. Harris won 20 states, gaining 226 Electoral College votes. With counting coming to an end, Trump won both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote.
Ultimately, the Electoral vote decides the election.
