Could you explain how the electoral vote works? There are 538 electoral votes. Each state gets an amount of electoral votes equivalent to their number of representatives and senators. DC is awarded 3 electoral votes, even though it is not a state. Essentially whoever gets the most votes in that state wins all of that state’s electoral votes(exceptions in Maine and Nebraska). Do you think it is time to change the Electoral College system? How can this change occur? The Electoral College gives more weight to some votes over others, which results in some voters ideals being overrepresented and other voters ideals being underrepresented. In order to abolish the Electoral College a constitutional amendment is needed. This is because the system of the Electoral College is written into the constitution. However, individual states can make changes in how they use the system. For example Maine and Nebraska split electoral votes between congressional districts instead of using the "winner-take-all" method that other states use in order to represent the will of the people more accurately. Do you think Election Day should be a holiday? If election day were a holiday voting would be more accessible and easier for many Americans and that is more democratic. Would having a third or fourth political party be beneficial to the US? In general it is a good thing in a democracy to have a diverse array of opinions and ideals be represented in the government. Having more political parties would allow more platforms to be heard and that would allow more voters to be properly represented in government. Right now the US does actually have more than two political parties. There is the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, and many other smaller political parties. The reason these smaller parties haven't grown too much in popularity is due to our system of voting. Most of our elections in this country use a "winner-take-all" system and this really discourages the growth of smaller political parties. A possible solution to this is ranked choice voting. Does my vote really count? Everyone’s vote does count but in presidential and state elections some people’s votes matter more than others. This is due to systems like the electoral college and gerrymandering. What is gerrymandering? The definition of gerrymandering is to “manipulate the boundaries of (an electoral constituency) so as to favor one party or class.” Voting districts need to be drawn every 10 years and that is actually essential to our system of voting. The problem is that districts are drawn by whatever party is in power at the time and they often put themselves at great advantage. A possible solution for this is having an independent non-partisan committee actually redraw the districts or changing the way representatives are awarded to districts in general(having multiple representatives for larger districts etc). Can a 'dreamer' vote? In general dreamers can’t vote(exceptions like Chicago and San Francisco). They’re considered permanent residents in the US, not citizens, so they have some rights but not the right to vote in federal elections. Undocumented immigrants cannot vote at all and it is illegal to do so. Can every US citizen vote? Why or why not? No, US citizens in US territories that are not states(Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa) cannot vote in presidential elections and do not get adequate representation in Congress. Citizens that live in DC can vote in presidential elections and, similar to the other US territories, they have representatives in Congress, but those representatives cannot vote on legislation. Additionally, depending on the state there are different laws regarding felons voting. Why do states get called blue, red or swing? In general a lot of states fall into voting patterns in our current system so those states are either considered red or blue. Other states are less predictable and it is unknown who is going to win that state, that is a swing state. Is the age to vote the same in all the states? Yes, there is a constitutional amendment that made the voting age 18 in the US. If a mail-in ballot is not post marked by the correct date (11/3) ... that vote doesn't get counted? Yes, people cannot cast a ballot after election day even if votes are still being counted after election day. How many delegates(for the electoral college) vote against the population in an election? It depends on the election but normally it is relatively low. Electors vote as expected 99% of the time. How many states allow delegates(for the electoral college) to vote against the popular vote? 32 states and DC “bind” delegates to vote with the popular vote, with various levels of enforcement. The other states don’t have the same motivation for delegates to vote with the popular vote. Should there be a financial limit on what can be spent to run for president? There is growing support for there to be a financial limit on spending for presidential elections. Many people think that people that make incredibly large donations to political campaigns have an unjust amount of influence on politics. To try and curtail this there have been efforts made to place a limit on campaign spending. Right now presidential candidates have the option to use a publicly funded grant on the condition that they agree to certain spending limits. Do you think the campaign length should be shortened? In recent years, political campaigns throughout different levels of government have been increasing in length. Presidential campaigns and a lot of state level campaigns are now almost two years long. The reason why these campaigns are so long is directly tied to the amount of money a political candidate has. Wealthy candidates have more money to run ads and make different political appearances and therefore they spend more time doing that. Similar to capping campaign spending, shortening campaign length would somewhat level the playing field between candidates who are extremely wealthy and candidates who are not. What is more accurate, the hand written ballots or the digital ones? Throughout the past few decades, there has been a lot of controversy regarding the benefits of digital voting machines vs paper ballots. In general a lot of people agree that it is important to have at least a paper backup or paper record of ballots in order to ensure votes are recorded accurately. And, though it may take more time to count, paper ballots can’t be hacked or malfunction unlike digital voting machines.