They elected him president vs. They elected him as president

[Jupiter]

Hi Teachers,

Happy New Year.

I have no present for you but a question, that is, is there any difference between the two?

Thanks in advance

Best wishes
Jupiter

[Yankee]

Happy New Year to you, too, Jupiter!

They elected him president. is the best when you refer to a very specific office.
"As" could be used when the office is one of many, for example.
The company elected him as one of its directors.

Amy

[Jamie (K)]

"Elect" in this sentence is what is called a "complex transitive verb". That means it has two objects, or an object and an adjective, both describing the same thing or person. So, in "The elected him president," both him and president are the same guy. That's according to traditional grammar.

In modern-day linguistics, they're more likely to say that this complex transitive verb is followed by something called a "small clause". This is a little sentence without a place for an auxiliary verb or "be", and it has no verb tense (most often, because it has no verb ).

In this explanation what you get in the underlying structure is something like:

They elected him. He is president.

And after the anglophone brain mangles it into one sentence:

They elected [him president].

"Him president" is the small clause. Of course, we could never use, "Him president," as sentence on its own, but there are a lot of clause types that can't stand on their own.