United States presidential election

A ballot for the 2016 presidential election and for other elections that year, listing the presidential and vice presidential candidates

The election of the president and vice president of the United States is an indirect election in which citizens of the United States who are registered to vote in one of the fifty U.S. states or in Washington, D.C., cast ballots not directly for those offices, but instead for members of the Electoral College. These electors then cast direct votes, known as electoral votes, for the presidential and vice presidential candidate. The candidate who receives an absolute majority of electoral votes (at least 270 out of 538, since the Twenty-third Amendment granted voting rights to citizens of D.C.) is then elected to that office. If no candidate receives an absolute majority of the votes for president, the House of Representatives elects the president; likewise if no one receives an absolute majority of the votes for vice president, then the Senate elects the vice president.