According to polls, the most important issues for voters were the economy, healthcare, democracy, foreign policy, violent crime, immigration, gun policy, abortion, racial and ethnic inequality, and climate change.
Monrovia, November 27, 2024: The Executive Director of the National Elections Commission (NEC), Anthony Sengbe, is back in the country after he joined other international elections observers to observe the US Presidential Elections.
Upon his return, Sengbe told journalists that participant learned about the decentralized U.S. election experience.
He detailed that they learned about the role of the Federal Election Commission, the rights of states to conduct elections per their systems and regulations, and the relationship between campaigns, election authorities, candidates, media, and the voters.
Sengbe was invited by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) to participate in the 2024, U.S. Election Program, which took place from Sunday, November 3, to Wednesday, November 6, 2024, at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, D.C.
The IFES Program gathered electoral stakeholders from around the world to learn firsthand about the American electoral process and discuss democracy and elections from a comparative international perspective.
Sengbe explained that the program featured a series of exchanges ahead of election day on key concepts and issues impacting elections and germane to elections in every country, with a specific focus on the U.S. case.
According to the NEC ED, on Election Day, he and other participants toured polling stations across the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia.
During the tour, they saw how neighboring territories conducted their elections using different technology and procedures.
The 2024 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 5, 2024.
In the presidential election, former President Donald Trump, running as the Republican nominee, defeated the incumbent Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
The 2024 United States presidential election was the 60th quadrennial presidential election.
Trump served as the 45th President of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
His running mate was J.D. Vance, the junior Senator from Ohio State.
Both men defeated the Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris, the incumbent U.S. Vice President, and Tim Walz, the Governor of Minnesota.
Trump and Vance are scheduled to be inaugurated as the 47th President and the 50th Vice President on January 20, 2025, after their formal election by the Electoral College.
The incumbent President, Joe Biden, of the Democratic Party, initially ran for re-election with Harris as the party’s presumptive nominee, facing little opposition.
However, what was broadly considered a poor debate performance in June 2024 intensified concerns about his age and health and led to calls within his party for him to leave the race.
After initially declining to do so, Biden withdrew on July 21, becoming the first eligible incumbent president to withdraw since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968.
Biden endorsed Vice President Harris, who was voted the party’s nominee by the delegates on August 5, 2024. Harris selected Walz as her running mate.
According to polls, the most important issues for voters were the economy, healthcare, democracy, foreign policy (notably U.S. support for Israel and Ukraine), violent crime, immigration, gun policy, abortion, racial and ethnic inequality, and climate change.
Education and LGBTQ rights were also prominent issues in the campaign.
Polled voters consistently cited the economy as being the single most important issue in the election.
According to research, immigration was the second most important issue to Trump supporters but the least important issue to Harris supporters.
Trump achieved a decisive victory, sweeping every swing state in addition to holding on to all of the states that he won in 2020.
Trump flipped six states that had voted for the Democrat in 2020 – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Trump won the national popular vote, making him the first Republican to do so since George W. Bush in 2004.
He obtained 312 of the Electoral College votes while Harris got 226. He needed just 270 votes to win the election.
Article Two of the United States Constitution states that for a person to serve as president, the individual must be a natural-born citizen of the United States, be at least 35 years of age, and have been a United States resident for at least 14 years.
The Twenty-second Amendment forbids any person from being elected president more than twice.
Major party candidates seek the nomination through a series of primary elections that select the delegates who choose the candidate at the party’s national convention.
The nominee for president usually picks the running mate, who is then ratified by the delegates at the party’s convention.
If no candidate wins a majority of their party’s delegates’ votes, or (in this election) a party’s presumptive nominee drops out of the race between the primaries and the convention, a brokered convention may be held.
The delegates are then “released” and are free to switch their allegiance to a different candidate.
