• Hausa Edition
  • Podcast
  • Conferences
  • LeVogue Magazine
  • Business News
  • Print Advert Rates
  • Online Advert Rates
  • Contact Us
Friday, June 6, 2025
Leadership Newspapers
Read in Hausa
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Health
  • Entertainment
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Football
  • Others
    • LeVogue Magazine
    • Conferences
    • National Economy
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Health
  • Entertainment
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Football
  • Others
    • LeVogue Magazine
    • Conferences
    • National Economy
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Leadership Newspapers
No Result
View All Result

How The US Electoral Process Works

In this first instalment of special articles shedding light on the similarities/differences between Africa and America ahead of the US presidential election on November 5, Sonala Olumhense, one of Nigeria’s most respected columnists/journalists, examines the voting process.

by Sonala Olumhense
7 months ago
in Foreign News
How The US Electoral Process Works
Share on WhatsAppShare on FacebookShare on XTelegram

Once, as President of the University of Ibadan Debating Club, I proposed to Professor Billy J. Dudley, now deceased, a change in the rules for determining a winner.

Advertisement

Dudley was among the finest Nigerian intellectuals.  At the time, he headed the Department of Political Science.

My club was preparing to host the University of Ghana, Legon, in the institution’s annual inter-university debate, and the professor accepted our invitation to be the lead judge.  The previous year in Ghana, we had lost the two-day, two-event competition by a single point.

Instead of the evaluation system in which the winner was determined by tallying the scores off all the judges for both sides—in which the skewed scoring of just one of the judges could swing the decision—I offered a “fairer” alternative that would see the score of each of the five judges simply as one vote.

Professor Dudley sat back and glared at me for a while.  “How do we know that that one judge is not the only sane person in the room?” he asked, grinning.

RELATED

Lee Jae-myung

South Korea’s New President Lee Jae-myung Pledges Recovery After Martial Law Crisis

2 days ago
Musk Blasts Trump’s Spending Bill After Exiting White House

Musk Blasts Trump’s Spending Bill After Exiting White House

2 days ago

In the end, an electoral contest, such as the presidential one now playing out in the US, is a debate contest with clearer rules.  In the past few months, the principal (a total of six candidates)—Republican and former President Donald Trump and current Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris—have slugged it out relentlessly in what is probably the world’s most expensive and acrimonious campaign.

Before a global audience, there are political rallies, sometimes in different states on the same day.  There is massive advertising on TV and radio.  Huge billboards.  Newspapers.  Magazines.  Social media.

There are media interviews.  There is the daily, sometimes hourly, appeal to voters by email or text messaging by the candidates, their campaigns or party members seeking financial support.  In these final days, there are also phone calls to individual voters.  People are walking the streets and knocking on the doors of prospective voters.   The target is every vote available.

The states, not the federal government, conduct US elections.  Voters may take advantage of early balloting or by mail, wherever available.  Using those alternatives, nearly sixty million persons had already voted as of yesterday, October 31.

But nothing beats the excitement, or the numbers, of that first Tuesday following the first Monday in November.

How does it work?  A polling centre is designed to be as simple as possible.  Well-trained election workers arrive as early as 5 am to set up and ensure that all the machines pass pre-determined tests.  They are often selected from the two key parties to ensure balance.

Their first challenge is to validate voter eligibility. He then receives a ballot, which he completes at a private table or booth. If there is an error in his ballot, it will be invalidated and replaced, but a complete record is painstakingly undertaken, and that bad ballot is saved for further inspection.

When the voter has filled out his ballot, he votes: slips the ballot into the voting machine, which mechanically accepts and counts it.  If any manual (re)count is required, those records are available in full.  In the Donald Trump election challenges that followed the 2020 contest, this is one of the reasons that he had difficulty proving, anywhere, the “fraud” that he alleged.

This process is different from Nigeria’s electoral thought.  While there may be occasional errors or even an attempt at fraud, the process aims to ensure the ballot’s integrity.  INEC, by comparison, advertises the appearance or possibility of fairness while being a monolithic nightmare in design because it is controlled and manipulated by the ruling party.

In principle, the Nigerian process—like the old UI debate management I referred to—produces a magic number, the popular vote, the larger of which is sufficient to send an individual to the presidential villa in Abuja.

In the US, those votes merely produce a slate of electors of the states known as the Electoral College, a constitutional mechanism of 538 people, of which 270 electoral votes are required for electing the President.

On Election Day next Tuesday, a well-known former president will face an opponent who is at once familiar and yet very strange. In winning his first presidency, Mr. Trump faced Hillary Clinton, a white woman.

In 2024, Trump—now a convicted felon and full-blown misogynist, by all accounts, and bearing the weight of the January 6 attack he engineered on the Capitol on his resume—again faces a woman.

She is Harris, a fierce former prosecutor and Senator who is also black.

 


We’ve got the edge. Get real-time reports, breaking scoops, and exclusive angles delivered straight to your phone. Don’t settle for stale news. Join LEADERSHIP NEWS on WhatsApp for 24/7 updates →

Join Our WhatsApp Channel

START EARNING US DOLLARS as a Nigerian ($35,000) monthly. Companies are sacking their workers due to AI (artificial intelligence), business owners are in panic mode. Only the smart will make it. Click here


Tags: US Elections
SendShareTweetShare
Previous Post

32 Killed In Benue, Plateau Attacks, Oyo Building Collapse

Next Post

Beyond Export Ban On Cooking Gas

Sonala Olumhense

Sonala Olumhense

You May Like

Lee Jae-myung
Foreign News

South Korea’s New President Lee Jae-myung Pledges Recovery After Martial Law Crisis

2025/06/04
Musk Blasts Trump’s Spending Bill After Exiting White House
Foreign News

Musk Blasts Trump’s Spending Bill After Exiting White House

2025/06/03
Elon Musk Denies Drug Use Allegations From 2024 Campaign
Foreign News

Elon Musk Denies Drug Use Allegations From 2024 Campaign

2025/06/01
Windhoek To Host 10th Leaders Without Borders Summit
Foreign News

Windhoek To Host 10th Leaders Without Borders Summit

2025/05/31
trump
Foreign News

Supreme Court Allows Trump To Revoke Legal Status For 500,000 Migrants

2025/05/31
Mahama Returns As Ghana President After 3 Attempts
Foreign News

John Mahama Condemns Trump’s ‘White Genocide’ Claim, Attack On Ramaphosa

2025/05/30
Leadership Conference advertisement

LATEST

Eidal-Adha: Matawalle Donates 3,000 Rams To Zamfara People

In Sallah Message, Tinubu Assures Nigeria ‘ll Prosper, Reforms Working

Crisis Brews In Zazzau Emirate As Ex-Waziri Petitions Kaduna Assembly Over Emir’s Seat

Trump Would Have Lost Election Without Me — Elon Musk

Eid-el-Kabir: Ganduje Rejoices With Muslim Ummah, Preaches Sacrifice, Charity

Era Of Banditry, Terrorism ‘ll Soon End — Wike

Abuja Lions Club Donates 90-bed Hostel To FCT School Of The Blind

Eid-el-Kabir: Senator Ajagunla Shares 2,500 Bags Of Rice, 100 Rams To Constituents

Eid-el-Kabir: Speaker Abbas Urges Muslims To Pray For Nigeria, Imbibe Spirit Of Sacrifice

Eid-El-Kabir: Barau Calls For Unity, Support For Needy

© 2025 Leadership Media Group - All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Health
  • Entertainment
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Football
  • Others
    • LeVogue Magazine
    • Conferences
    • National Economy
  • Contact Us

© 2025 Leadership Media Group - All Rights Reserved.