The etymology of the term vote leads us to votum, a word that belongs to the Latin language. Voting is the expression that an individual makes about his preference for a certain alternative. The concept is also used to name the element that allows the expression of the preference in question.
Popular, in turn, is one who is connected with people. Normally, this adjective is used to describe what is within the reach of all people, including those who are part of the lowest strata of society due to lack of economic resources, education, etc. With these clear ideas, we can advance in the definition of the popular vote. This expression is used to designate the mechanism that allows citizen participation in political decision-making. The inhabitants of a region, through voting in elections, have the possibility of electing their representatives, that is, the subjects who will form part of the government and who will administer the State in accordance with the provisions of the law.
The popular vote refers to the scope of this possibility of participation. In the past, it was common for only people who owned certain assets or had a certain level of education to vote. In these cases, the vote was restricted or registered. On the other hand, when a large part of the population (for example, women and men over the age of 18, regardless of their education and economic status) can vote, it is a popular vote election. Right now, the term of the popular vote is more in force than ever due to the president of the United States, Donald Trump. Specifically, he did not hesitate to affirm, without providing any evidence, that if he did not win the popular vote it was because many undocumented immigrants began to vote for Hillary Clinton. Thus, he stated that he estimates that between 3 and 5 million people illegally voted for the other candidate. And we cannot forget that in the United States there is a peculiar system to elect the president based on the following pillars:
-Citizens are in charge of doing what the popular vote is.
– The winner of the aforementioned votes in a certain state is, as a general rule, designated the absolute winner by the voters of the territory in question.
-And then there is what is known as the Electoral College, which is made up of a total of 583 voters, which is the number that corresponds to the legislators that Congress has: 435 in the House of Representatives, 100 in the Senate and three for Colombia.
– Thus, from the above, it is established that for a candidate to be nominated as the winner of the elections and, therefore, be proclaimed President of the United States, he must obtain, at least, the votes of 270 voters.
This system does not convince many, since there have been cases of candidates who won the popular vote, but then did not reach the White House because their rivals won in the votes of the voters.
