By Our Reporter
U.S presidential contender Joe Biden has revealed that he is ready to deploy a very experienced legal team to battle with incumbent President Donald Trump, should he refuse to hand over power if he loses the much-contested election.
Biden’s resolution came a few hours after Trump prematurely declared himself the winner and said that the vote counting should stop, sparking off outrage from various Americans.
By the time of filing this story Biden had garnered 238 of the 270 votes needed to win the election, while Trump was trailing with 213.
However, it should be noted that Americans are also electing members to the two chambers of Congress, the main law-making body of the US. Those chambers are the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Without support in the Senate and the House, the president’s ability to enact key policies is severely limited.
The winner of the election is determined through a system called the Electoral College. Each of the 50 states, plus Washington DC, is given a number of Electoral College votes, adding up to a total of 538 votes. More populous states get more Electoral College votes than smaller ones.
A candidate needs to win 270 Electoral College votes (50% plus one) to win the election.
In every state except two – Maine and Nebraska – the candidate that gets the most votes wins all of the state’s Electoral College votes.
Due to these rules, a candidate can win the election without getting the most votes at the national level. This happened at the last election, in which Donald Trump won a majority of Electoral College votes although more people voted for Hillary Clinton across the US.