With the US election on a knife's edge, Melbourne University's Emma Shortis, an expert in American politics, outlines where each candidate sits in the overall race, the concept of electoral college votes and what could happen should there be no clear winner.
Where do both candidates currently sit in the US election race?
"The race is closer than anyone really expected or projected. Florida* which is a very important state that has 29 electoral votes, a place where a couple of elections have come down to. It's looking really close and within one per cent, with 90 per cent counted. Trump has to win that state basically in order to win the overall electoral college votes, which would win him the presidency. Clinton doesn’t have to win Florida, but symbolically it’s significant if she loses that state – so that’s an important one to win.
"As far as the rest goes, and the swing states such as Ohio*, Pennsylvania and Virginia*, the vote is still too close to call, which is a little bit surprising. Clinton has a few different paths to the White House, where Trump has a narrow path. Clinton needs to hold on while Trump needs to jump ahead.”
What are electoral college votes and why are they important?
"Each of the states is allocated a number of electoral college votes, which are based on population. The person who is campaigning to become president needs to win the majority of those votes - and 270 is the magic number. campaigns have to structure their approach around the right number of states in order to win the election overall. California is a huge state and has 55 electoral college votes, but it's historically always Democrat - and that state gets no attention in the campaign. Swing states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania - because they can go either way - candidates focus very heavily on them. In almost every case, whenever the candidate wins the state, they get all of that state's electoral votes. So whoever wins Florida, gets all of its 29 votes."
Is this the closest election we’ve ever seen?
“It’s not the closest we’ve seen, but it still has potential to be. The closest was Al Gore and George Bush in 2000 - that came down to Florida, and in the end he (Bush) won Florida by 537 votes. I think the margin in Florida will be bigger than that, but if it’s within a bit less than a per cent, there will be an automatic recount. So Florida could go on for a long time."
Is the option of not getting a result today possible?
“It is possible, it’s still unlikely. But if it does happen, there are a few different things that could happen. If the vote in Florida stays very close, there would be an automatic recount. But, in other states it would be very different.
"In the 50 states, the electoral process is run by a state body – so there are 50 different organisations that run this and they’re all slightly different. In some states there would be an automatic recount if the results are within a certain margin, in other states the loser has to ask for a recount or go directly to court. So if it’s really close you could see litigation go all the way to the US Supreme Court – which could take months.”
*Florida was won by Trump.
*Ohio was won by Trump.
