There will be many first time voters in the 2016 Presidential Election, many of whom have turned 18 since 2012, or have just never voted before.  Voting for the President can be confusing, from registering to actually finding a local polling location that is close to where you live.  The United States government goes to great lengths to encourage eligible citizens to vote for the President, but much of the process is still a mystery to many.  We’re here to help you learn how to vote for the President online.

Before we start explaining how you can contribute your vote to the 2016 Election, we want to explain exactly how our government decides who will win the Presidential seat.  There are 2 components to a Presidential election. Individual voters like yourself contribute to the “Popular Vote,” which is a raw count of how many citizens vote for each candidate. The other component in a presidential election is the Electoral College vote.

Each state is allotted a number of electoral votes, based on its population as determined in the most recent national census. There are a total of 538 electoral votes which corresponds to the 435 members of the House of Representatives and the 100 members of the United States Senate.  Whichever candidate is granted the majority of the electoral votes (270) by the college wins the election and becomes the president for the next four years.

While there have been some elections in the history of the U. S. in which the outcome has not been so “cut and dry”, the majority of presidential elections have been decided in this manner.

Before you go to the voting polls on November 8th, 2106, you must first register to vote, and declare your party affiliation. You don’t need to vote for the party that you’ve declared on your voter registration, but it will help contribute to the numbers in the polls and will help to give some idea as to who will win the popular vote before election day arrives.

In order to vote in the 2016 presidential election, you must first register to vote.  There are many options to choose from, including whether you’d like to do so online, via mail, or in person.  We recommend contacting the election offices of your state, county, or local government about your voter registration options.

You MUST be registered to vote one month before the presidential election is held.

Who should you vote for in the 2016 election?  It is a big decision, as you only get to cast your vote once ever four years. Democrat or Republican? At this point in time, there are a variety of candidates on both sides to choose from, but after the Democratic and Republican primaries in the summer of 2016, there will be only two left standing.  You’ll have a big decision to make when you go to the polls in November, 2016. Political campaigns cost millions of dollars, and as each candidate tries harder to win your vote, it becomes more difficult to decide who to vote for in the election.

You can cast your online vote right now in our mock election for the president here on this site!  Just click on the large “Vote” button in the upper right hand corner, or click the box below, to find where you can cast your vote for the candidate that you think should win the election now!

And, you can visit the site and vote again and again as the field of candidates narrows to give you a better idea about who our next president may be.