Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It is Wednesday, the sixth of November. I'm Billy, I'm Zara. As this podcast episode goes out this morning, millions of people in the US are voting for the country's next president. They're choosing between Kamala Harris from the Democrats and Donald Trump from the Republican Party. Zara, I cannot believe we are finally here.
You've never heard a topic spoken about more in the Leader, but we are finally here.
It has been a dramatic run up to this.
Election, it sure has.
And I mean it's not even the end, it's almost just the beginning.
It's only just starting.
So today we're going to go through some of the key questions that you might find yourself wondering. You know, it's firstly just a completely different system to be getting our head around, but also the timing and when we'll know things like there are just so many things to understand. And I think that it's moments like this that lend itself to tda's core. It's us just cutting through the noise. You don't need to read and listen to every single
thing out there. We're going to give you the information you need to know. And so, Billy, let's just start small. How does the voting system work in the US?
Great one to start, I think, especially for us here in Australia where our systems are so different.
Yeah.
Obviously, just to start, in the US, you are voting for a person to be the leader. In Australia you're voting for a party to lead the country, and then from that the leader comes from it. Another key difference is that voting is not compulsory in the US, whereas here in Australia you will get fined if you do not vote, which is why big focus for candidates is to actually convince people to vote at all. In Australia, we don't have that problem.
Yeah, And it's just such a big and stark difference that not only do you have to go out there and convince voters of why you should be elected, but you actually have to go step back and say no, you should be involved in this process. Yes, do we understand how many people tend to go out and vote.
So in twenty twenty it was just over sixty percent of the voting age population who voted, so that's over one hundred million people. Their size is so big. And one thing to note is that obviously we're talking about this on a Wednesday. We are right in the middle of a week, and that's because US elections are always held on a Tuesday, when, of course most people are at work, So it's not on a Saturday like it is here, where you can just roll up to your local.
School character democracy sausage and call it a day.
You have to, you know, literally leave work. A lot of people will have to get leave in order to vote. And the reason for this is because in eighteen forty five, a law was passed to set the national election day on the first Tuesday of November every four years.
And that takes out the power, for example, that the minister here has in that he can decide if he wants to call an early election things aren't going too well for him or her, they can call an early election.
That's not possible in the US. We're looking at a completely different scenario.
No, it's always on the first Tuesday of November every four years. And the reason for it being on a Tuesday is because, again in eighteen forty five, which is nearly two hundred years ago. Now, many Americans were farmers who lived at least a day's commute away from their nearest polling station, and so for a few different reasons, it was decided that Tuesday was the most convenient day
to suit the average farmers schedule. Obviously, demographics have changed a lot, and what an average person in the US's day looks like is very different. But that doesn't mean that they've changed their voting system.
It's incredible.
Okay, So it's not compulsory to vote, and you're voting on a Tuesday. Those are two big differences. But then I'd say the bigger conversation here is about how the voting system actually works in the US. Talk me through the electoral College.
Okay, So I'll start by saying how it's not done and it's not chosen by popular vote. So the president isn't chosen by the person who wins the most votes across the country. In fact, very famously, in twenty sixteen, Hillary Clinton did win more votes across the nation compared to Trump.
On just raw numbers alone, just raw numbers.
I think it was something like three million more votes that Hillary Clinton received compared to Donald Trump, but it was because of how the system works, which is called the electoral college system, that she did not end up winning the presidency.
Okay, so talk me through the college system.
Okay, So what you need to know is that there are five hundred and thirty eight electoral college votes available, and each US state gets a specific number of electoral votes, depending roughly on its population size. So, for example, California has the most electric college votes with fifty four, and then less populated states like Alaska they only have three. Okay,
and it's different for every state. Whoever gets the most votes from a state's population wins all of that states electoral votes, which are then cast in the electoral college.
So half of California's electoral college vote can't go to one candidate and half go to the other. They would all go to Kamala Harris or all go to Donald Trump. That will go to Kamala Harris.
Just by nature exactly. So let's say sixty percent of California voted for Kamala Harris and forty percent voted for Donald Trump. That doesn't mean that sixty percent of California's electoral votes goes to Kamala Harris. It means that one hundred percent of California's fifty four electoral votes goes to Kamala Harris.
Which is a lot of votes that you're looking for, those kind of big ticket votes.
And now to be elected president, the candidate needs a majority of two hundred and seventy electoral votes. So that is the magic number. If you see one thing today, it's going to be two hundred and seventy. Everyone is going to be talking about that number. And just a
note on how I got to that two seventy. So, like I said, there are the five hundred and thirty eight electoral College votes, you divide that by two, which is two hundred and sixty nine, and then you need one more to reach your majority, which is two hundred and seventy.
Well, we get our heads across that Maths equation. We're just going to take a quick break for today's sponsor. I just want to pick up on something we were talking about before you talked to me through your Math's equation that I completely zoned out for. We were talking there about California, and I intimated that that will almost
one hundred percent end up going to Kamla Harris. Because we know it's a blue state, and that just means that it has overwhelmingly always backed a Democrat aligned candidate.
Can I just pick up on something there? You said a blue state. One thing to also know today is that blue is Democrats and red is Republican.
Yeah, exactly, good point. So can you talk to me a bit about these safe states?
Yeah, So essentially, when we are talking about a safe state, we are saying that we have a very good understanding of how that state is going to vote, and that is most states. So most states lean so strongly Republican or Democrats that it's hardly a contest. So, for example, the state of Wyoming hasn't voted for a Democratic president
since nineteen sixty four, so basically sixty years. And so Kamala Harris has not spent any time holding rallies in Wyoming because that's just considered a waste of her time.
Because it's almost entirely set to go to Donald Trump.
Exactly.
It seems way too unlikely, and so there's no point her spending any time there. Now, if Harris and Trump both win all of the states that are considered pretty safe, then Harris will have two hundred and twenty six electoral College votes and Donald Trump has two hundred and nineteen, and reminder, they need to get to two seventy. So Kamala Harris two hundred and twenty six, Donald Trump two hundred and nineteen.
Okay, And so I imagine that's where the swing states come into the equation exactly.
So, swing states are those that have switched between voting Republican and Democrat at recent elections. Usually every US election there are between six to eight swing states that really determine the outcome of that election. This election, there are seven that have been identified, and I'm going to list them because they are the states that if you're watching any coverage today, you will hear a lot about these states.
So there's Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada. Now Pennsylvania is one of the key ones because that is the swing state with the most electoral college votes,
so they have nineteen. And now in terms of polling, neither Trump or Harris are leading by more than two points in any of those seven key swing states that I mentioned, And so what that tells us is it's going to be extremely tight in those swing states and that all of them are pretty much up for grabs.
And so what that means for all of us who are going to be watching is that we can expect the states like California or like Wyoming, which we've already spoken about today, to fall pretty quickly and to be declared pretty quickly. But then once those are all out of the way, it's about where will these swing states fall whose favor will they fall in, and what does that mean about who can get to that magic number for And so I guess my next question is when are we going to know what the results is?
That is the million dollar question that I wish we could look into a Crystal Paul and find out. What we know is that the last polls closed four PM our time, so Australian Eastern daylight time. The last dates to have their polls closed is Alaska and Hawaii. Now, historically the result has been known on the night of the election, which is today in Australia, so Wednesday daytime in Australia.
Can I just interject to say, it's so nice that there's a possibility we'll have a result during the daytime and not at three am. I feel like the Olympics. In Paralympics really got us with those four am way yepes. But if everything is clear, we could know something during the day today.
Yeah, we could have it during the daylight hours. I remember in twenty sixteen that we did know during the day on the Wednesday that Trump had won. You might remember, though, that last election in twenty twenty, it took four days for the final election result to be called. I remember just being glued to my TV screen and I don't think I had moved for four days.
Was that a birthday brunch? Yes, when it got called.
Yeah, And so it wasn't until the Saturday, which is Sunday in Australia, when you're out your brunch.
Zara important happy birthday, Lexi.
For us to know that Joe Biden had won. Now, experts are predicting that the race could be just as tight as it was in twenty twenty, but there have been a few different changes to how the counting system works in different states that could speed the process up. But who knows. If it's super close, then it could be days.
Another thing about the twenty twenty election is that it was during COVID, and so we know that there were a lot of votes by mail because people weren't able to get out and vote. What's the difference now with this election.
Yeah, in twenty twenty, there was actually an unprecedented number of people who voted by mail, and that did slow down the process. Like I said, a few different changes have been made in different states that could now speed
up the process. But another thing to note is that last time, we saw an early Republican swing in some states before the mail in votes had been counted, and what was then discovered is that Democrats were more likely to vote by mail and that meant that the Republican swing early on turned out to be misleading in some of those states. So just something to keep an eye out. Who knows if that will happen again this year, but again something to keep an eye out. I think that's it.
I think that covers it. I hope it's not information overload, But we kind of just wanted to give you a run through of kind of the basics of the state of play in the US at the moment. Zara, Before we go, I have to ask you, I actually do know, but I'd like you to share with the listeners exactly your thoughts on who sele thought on who do you think will win?
I have for a very long time believed that Donald Trump will be the winner of this election.
Please explain I.
I mean, I think that there are lots of different things at play, but I think the biggest cohort that perhaps isn't being spoken about as wide or I have seen quite a lot of articles recently, but perhaps in the earlier parts of the election campaign, is this group of young, white, non college educated men, and I think that they could turn out en mass and really lead to a Trump victory. But I imagine it'll be a close one, but I think he might scrape through.
What about you.
I have also thought that Trump would win, but I think in recent weeks, and perhaps in the last month, we have seen maybe a bit more of a shift towards Kamala Harris. Over the weekend, we saw that in the state of Iowa, which is not one of the key swing states that we mentioned, a new poll came out of there that said that Kamala Harris was actually ahead of.
That was a bigie.
That was big news. But look, I don't think that Kamala Harris will win Iowa, but I think that that result could be representative of a bit of a swing happening in the recent weeks. Again, I mean it's nothing new to say. Who knows.
Yeah, time you go. We're hedging out, Betsy. Either way, we will be one hundred percent correct. Either way.
We will be back again tomorrow and we'll bring you all the updates and all the news you need to know. You can follow along on our Instagram page, sign up to our newsletter, or find us here on the podcast strap In. It's going to be a big couple of days, but we are here to take you through it.
Thanks for your support. We'll chat to you again tomorrow.
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Caalcutin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strain island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.