The 2016 Presidential Conventions:

2016 Presidential Candidate – barely a month before the signing of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787, delegates to the Philadelphia Convention assigned the Council of Eleven with the task of formulating a mechanism for the election of the President of the United States of America.

The eleven men of the council had to devise a system that will at once protect the rights of the smallest states and defend against the influence of foreign governments while still adhering to the will of the majority. It was a difficult task, but the Council of Eleven managed to create a multi-tiered voting system called the College of Electors, modeled after the Centuriate Assembly of the ancient Roman Republic.

On November 8, 2016, the United States will use the almost two-and-a-half century-old Electoral College system for the 56th time to elect its 45th President. The newly elected president will be sworn in on January 20, 2017, which will also be President Barack Obama’s last day in office.

How will the president be elected? Basically, a presidential candidate needs to win at least the majority, or 270, of the 538 Electoral College votes to be elected president.

The Electors of the Electoral College are distributed proportionally to every state and Washington D.C., equaling the number of its delegation to the U.S Senate and House of Representatives (Article 2, Clause 2, U.S. Constitution).

The Electoral College votes of each state are pledged in whole to the presidential candidate with the most votes in their respective states during the general election – with the exception of Nebraska and Maine, which distribute votes proportionally by Congressional districts.

Apart from the politically unaffiliated George Washington, the first president, all subsequent American presidents were members of the Federalist (1), Whig (4), Democratic-Republican (4), Democratic (15) and Republican (18) parties. After the demise of the first three parties, the Democratic and Republican parties have dominated every presidential election from 1853 to now – and it will be no different in this election cycle.

The Democratic Party will officially pick its nominees for president and vice-president at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 25, 2016 based on the results of 70 primaries, caucuses, conventions and state central committee meetings held between February 1, 2016 and June 18, 2016.

The Republican Party, meanwhile, will announce its presidential and vice-presidential nominees at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland on July 18, 2015. The GOP’s selection will be based on the results of 66 primaries, caucuses, conventions and state central committee meetings held between February 1, 2016 and June 18, 2016.

The nominees of the big two are not the only contenders though. Other notable presidential candidates include former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party) and Jill Stein (Green Party). There are also, as of April 2016, another 3,778 other candidates who have registered their candidacy with the Federal Election Commission.

The 2016 presidential election will ultimately end up as the costliest in history. A few analysts have predicted that direct campaign spending for the primaries and general election will ultimately cross the $5 billion mark, eclipsing even the 2012 contest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

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