Kamala wins New Hampshire; see the calculation

How US elections work

In the United States, the president is not directly elected. Voters choose electoral college representatives (delegates) from their respective states. In practice, the party that wins in each state gains a certain number of “points”, represented by delegates.

Voting is not mandatory. Unlike Brazil, North Americans can abstain from voting. People aged 18 and over are eligible to participate.

The number of delegates in each state varies from 3 to 54. It is calculated based on the size of the population and the number of parliamentarians.

Candidate receives all votes in the state, regardless of percentages. In other words, if the vote is 51% to 49% in a state with ten delegates, the candidate who received the most votes will take the ten representatives.

It is possible for a candidate to receive a majority of the popular vote but lose the election. In 2016, Donald Trump had almost three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, but he was elected because he had 306 delegates. The same situation happened in the presidential elections of 1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000.