How is the US president elected?

The 2024 US presidential election will take place on November 5. Here are all your questions about the US election process answered. 

Who can run for presidential office?

The US Constitution has three basic requirements for presidential candidates: Individuals must be natural-born citizens of the United States, at least 35 years old and resident within the country for 14 years. There are some exceptions to the 14-year requirement for members of the US armed forces. 

What are the requirements for candidates?

"Almost anybody who's an adult citizen can run for president," Wayne Steger, a professor of Political Science at DePaul University in the US state of Illinois, told DW. That includes people who have been accused or convicted of crimes. The US Constitution, in fact, contains a provision that explicitly allows these individuals to run to ensure political prisoners are not denied the ability to lead, Steger said. 

A section of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution famously prohibits individuals who have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof" from holding political office. But Steger said it was very unlikely that the amendment would play a role in the upcoming election.

Though the Supreme Court won't rule on Donald Trump's involvement in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, a majority of justices said the former president had broad protection from criminal prosecution for actions that fell within his official responsibilities. The Supreme Court has delegated the lower District Court in Washington to determine just how that immunity should be applied.

What happens in primaries and caucuses?

These modest eligibility requirements mean that the candidate pool must be whittled down before the November election. Primaries and caucuses represent the first step of this process by determining political party support for candidates. These take place at the state level during early spring of an election year. Unless a candidate runs as an independent, they will register to run with a political party in the state where they live.

As in regular elections, primaries take place via secret ballot, and the candidate with the most votes wins. Caucuses are more complex. In states that use them, a day is designated for political party members to meet to decide together, through a sort of public vote, which candidate they want to represent them. Hundreds of these meetings occur when a state holds its caucus. 

Primaries and caucuses look different depending on the state and the party, but the goal is the same: to determine support for individual candidates and pick a nominee for the general election.

What is the significance of the national conventions?

Once all the state-level primaries and caucuses have taken place, the political parties hold national conventions to officially choose the candidate to represent them in the November election and his or her running mate. 

At the conventions, delegates from each of the 50 US states come together to vote on the presidential nominee. A candidate needs a simple majority of delegate votes to win the nomination. There are different types of delegates. The Democrats call them "pledged" and "unpledged"; the Republicans call them "bound" and "unbound." Pledged/bound delegates must vote for the candidate who won the primary in their state — at least in the first round of voting. Unpledged/unbound candidates are free to vote for a candidate of their personal choosing. At the Democrats' convention, unpledged delegates are only allowed to vote starting in round 2.

The Republican National Convention, which takes place from July 15 to 18, will not likely bring many surprises. Donald Trump won most of the bound delegates in the primaries and is thus likely to win the nomination in the first round of voting. 

The Democratic National Convention, which takes place from August 19 to 22, is another story. There is a chance that US President Joe Biden, who has won the Democratic primaries, could withdraw his candidacy for the election in November. In that case, Democrats will determine their new nominee (and his or her running mate) at the convention. 

If Biden withdraws, all delegates pledged to him (almost all of the roughly 3,900 pledged delegates) are free to vote for whomever they want. This would be an open convention. If nobody wins the majority of delegate votes after round 1, candidates and other influential Democratic politicians will start talking to the delegates, or even to rival candidates, trying to broker a deal for a win in subsequent rounds of voting. This is called a brokered convention.  

What happens in the presidential general election?

After national conventions, election season heats up. On Election Day, votes are held nationwide in thousands of cities and towns. Any US citizen registered to vote can take part.

What is the Electoral College?

The US presidential election is not determined by a majority vote but is ultimately decided by the Electoral College, which comprises 538 electors (one elector for every member of US Congress, plus three for the District of Columbia). A simple majority of at least 270 of these electoral votes are needed to win the election.

These votes are allocated based on geography and population: Each US state is given one electoral vote per member of its congressional delegation. That means that regardless of population, each state automatically has three electoral votes because all states have two US senators and at least one seat in the House of Representatives.

The number of people who make up a state’s congressional delegation depends on its population. California has the most electoral votes, with 54, while Vermont, for example, has the minimum, with three. Except for Maine and Nebraska, which have a variation of the proportional representation system, a candidate will win all of a state’s electoral votes if it wins the majority there.