Donald Trump has become the first American President convicted of a crime. He will be sentenced on 26th November, but can a president go to jail after winning an election? Trump’s biggest focus has been illegal immigration. However, as president, he will not only address illegal immigration but also disrupt legal immigration. Hundreds of thousands of Indians in the US are on H1-B visas, but he considers the H1-B visa wrong and unfair. News reports already suggest that Trump’s policies will affect more than 1 million Indians waiting for green cards.
Donald Trump has achieved a historic victory. Not only will Donald Trump return as the US president, but his Republican Party will also form a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. A news report states, “We are projecting at this hour that the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump, will be elected to return to the White House.” Apart from this, it will be the first time in 20 years that the Republican Party wins the popular vote. The popular vote means the majority in vote share. A higher percentage of Americans voted for Donald Trump rather than Kamala Harris. It may sound unusual, but the American political system is designed in a way that often allows one candidate to win the majority vote share while another becomes president.
The same incident happened in 2016 when Hillary Clinton received 2.8 million more votes than Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton had 48.2% votes, and Donald Trump received 46.1% votes. Still, Donald Trump won the election and became president. How is this possible? Let’s understand this strange American political system. Let’s also find out the impact of Donald Trump becoming president again on India and the rest of the world.
Indian Parliamentary System Vs American Political System
In India, people hold elections every five years, with the Election Commission deciding the dates. In the United States, voters repeat the process every four years on a fixed date—on the first Tuesday of November, Americans choose their president. On that day, they also elect members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Americans recognize the House of Representatives as the lower house, similar to the Lok Sabha in India, and the Senate as the upper house, like the Rajya Sabha. People commonly refer to them as the House and Senate.
In India, people directly vote in Lok Sabha elections but do not directly elect the members of the Rajya Sabha. In contrast, in the USA, members of both the House and the Senate are elected directly by the people. These elections are held every two years. the members of the Senate, known as Senators, have a term of 6 years. So, all of them aren’t elected together. Every two years, one-third senators are elected. For example this year 34 senators were to be elected. So on the day of election, most of the world thinks that Americans vote only for their President. But in reality, they cast 3 votes.
First to elect their President, Second o select their house representative, and third to elect their Senator. The process for three elections is different. They all contains different processes. Let’s have a look at their House.
House Of Representative in American Political System
There are a total of 435 seats in the House. Seats are allocated to each state according to its population. For example, New York gets 26 seats and state like Alaska and Montana get only 1 or 2 seats. Even though these states are much bigger in size than New York. Because the population is considered, lot the land area. Montana has about 1.1 million people, New York has a population of about 20 million people. The elections of House are quite straightforward. Every state is divided into multiple districts. The voters of each district choose one representative. The candidates campaign at local level and talk about local issues. Eventually, the candidate with the most votes in each district wins. This is not something unusal thing and it does not affect the presidential election.
People can vote for candidates from different parties for the three elections. Before the 2024 elections Republicans had 222 seats in the House and Democrats had 213 seats. Republicans already had a majority because in the elections 2 years ago, in the 2022 elections, the Republican party had won more seats. In these elections, the Republican party is getting majority again. The counting is still going on, so the exact no. cannot be predicted. It takes several days to finish the counting.
Senate
There are 100 members in total. Two Senators are elected from every from every state in America. There is no population criteria for it. There are 50 states in America. So 50*2 = 100 Members. Before the 2024 elections, the democrats had a majority of 51-49 in the Senate. But recently, after the 2024 elections, the majority has been reversed and the Republicans have a majority here as well. And this majority is very important for any political party. Because, it is Senate that has the power to appoint federal judges and Supreme Court justice. Although the judiciary should be truly independent from the political system. But from the last past few years, there has been a list of controversy in America that the Republican party has appointed its people to the supreme court and because of that, such decisions are being passed.
The Right to Abortion was a constitutional Right for women living in America. But after the Supreme Court ruling in 2022 this was taken away from women. This judgement meant that in many American states, women were not allowed to get an abortion. Apart from this, the Senate also has the power to pass bills. If a law has to be made in America, it needs to be passed in both the House & the Senate. Just like in India, where a law can be made only after it was passed in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha both.
Presidential System
Let’s start with Presidential elections, the most well known elections in America. Being the American President is the most powerful designation in America, it can be equated with the Prime Minister’s Designation in India. The only difference here is India has a parliamentary system, so the winning party in Lok Sabha elections later elects the Prime Minister. It means that, technically we don’t vote for Prime Minister Candidate. For Example in 2004 elections when congress led UPA won, no one knew Dr. Manmohan Singh would be elected as India’s Prime Minister. But for the last few years, Indian elections are becoming like this only where people are voting for a party’s leader, Prime Minister candidate, or Chief Minister Candidate by looking at their face identity.
In America, people choose their president by voting for a presidential candidate. Technically, this is not the direct vote for the American President. rather, the Votes are cast through electors. A body of elector called electoral college, eventually goes and elect the president. Even though the President and the Vice President candidate’s name are printed on the ballot paper and fact is even in today’s time most states uses ballots for their elections. In reality, people vote for those electors who will be loyal to the party.
