The big numbers from the US election – Firstpost

The countdown has begun. There are nine days until the US presidential election, one of the most significant in the country’s history.

Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris is up against former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump. Harris has chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as his running mate, while Trump’s choice is JD Vance, who has served as a US senator from Ohio since 2023.

November 5th is the big election day, but some states are allowing early voting. Over 41 million votes have been cast so far, reported Time, citing data from the University of Florida’s Election Lab, which officially tracks early voting. Meanwhile, more than 2.7 million voters have cast early ballots in the key state of Georgia.

The choice can be a mumbo-jumbo of numbers. Here are some important ones you should be aware of.

Thaw

The presidential race usually consists of two candidates from the major parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. This time, the race between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump is seeking votes.

But these are not the only candidates. Many independents have also run for office this time, garnering staggering votes.

Five

November 5. Election Day in the United States is traditionally held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Seven

There are seven swing states, precisely those that do not clearly favor one party over the other, meaning they are up for grabs.

Harris and Trump are courting voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and are concentrating their campaign efforts there to secure victory. In a close election, just a handful of votes in any of these states could decide the outcome.

34 and 435

Voters will not only decide who will live in the White House on election day, but will also press update on the US Congress. Thirty-four Senate seats and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs.

In the House, the members sit for a period of two years. Republicans currently hold the majority, and Harris’ Democrats will be hoping for a turnaround.

In the Senate, 34 seats out of 100 are vacant for a six-year term. The Republicans hope to overthrow the narrow Democratic majority.

538

Welcome to the Electoral College, the indirect system of universal suffrage that governs US presidential elections. Each state has a different number of electors, calculated by adding the number of their elected representatives in the House, which varies by population, to the number of senators (two per state).

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Rural Vermont, for example, has only three electoral votes. Giant California, meanwhile, has 54. There are a total of 538 voters spread across the 50 states and the District of Columbia. To occupy the White House, a candidate must win 270 votes.

774,000

The number of poll workers who volunteered to help ensure the 2020 election ran smoothly, according to the Pew Research Center. There are three types of election staff in the United States. The majority are poll workers, recruited to do things like greet voters, help with language, set up voting equipment and verify voter IDs and registrations.

Election officials are elected, hired or appointed to perform more specialized tasks such as training poll workers, according to Pew. Pollsters are usually appointed by political parties to observe the vote count – which is expected to be particularly contentious this year, thanks to Trump’s refusal to agree to unconditionally accept the result.

Many election workers have already spoken AFP about the pressure and threats they are receiving ahead of the vote on 5 November.

270 million and 78 million

Harris’ team spent $270 million on her campaign in September, while Trump spent much less, just $78 million, official filings show. According to New York TimesHarris’ campaign set a record for the biggest fundraising quarter ever this fall, raising $1 billion since entering the race following Joe Biden’s withdrawal in July.

244 million

The number of Americans who will be eligible to vote in 2024, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. How many of them will actually cast their vote remains to be seen, of course. But the Pew Research Center says the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections and the 2020 presidential vote produced three of the highest turnouts of their kind seen in the United States in decades.

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“About two-thirds (66 percent) of the eligible voting population turned out for the 2020 presidential election — the highest rate for any national election since 1900,” Pew says on its website. That translated to nearly 155 million voters, according to the Census Bureau.

41 million

As of Oct. 27, more than 41 million Americans had voted early, according to a University of Florida database. Most US states allow in-person or mail-in voting to allow people to deal with scheduling conflicts or the inability to cast their ballots on Election Day itself, November 5.

With input from AFP

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