What is the Electoral College?
The Electoral College is the mechanism for electing the president and vice president of the United States. When a person goes in the voting booth on Election Day and chooses a candidate for president they are really voting for an elector who has pledged to vote for that candidate. The electors meet in December and vote for a president and vice president.
Each state and Washington D.C is allocated a certain number of electors proportional to the population of the state (and in the case of Washington D.C, the population of the city). The number is equal to the number of congressman plus the number of senators for each state. For example California has 55 electors because it has 53 congressman and two senators. Most of the states allocate their electors in a winner-take-all system. The winner of the popular vote of the state receives all the electors from the state. This system is present in 48 of the 50 states. The two states where this system is not used are Nebraska and Maine. They each allocate their votes based on congressional district, with the overall winner of the state vote getting the two votes that correspond to the number of senators.
To become president a candidate needs a majority of votes in the Electoral College. There are 538 electoral votes in total (435 congressman plus 100 senators plus three votes for Washington D.C). To win a candidate needs 270 votes. If no candidate receives an absolute majority, or if there is a tie the House of Representatives chooses the president, with each state’s delegation getting one vote. The winner of a majority in the House becomes president. The vice-president is chosen by the Senate.
The national popular vote total is irrelevant for deciding who becomes president. All that matters are the state popular vote totals. In the current system the winner of a majority of electoral votes is not necessarily the same as the person who gets a majority, or the highest percent, of the popular vote. This has happened four times in history. In 1824, 1876, 1888, and most recently in 2000. Furthermore the winner of the Electoral College has not been the winner of the majority of national popular vote 16 times.
The fact that a candidate can receive a majority of votes, but still not win the election has led many people argue that the electoral college should be abolished; in a Gallup poll 61 percent of respondents said that they would rather have popular vote instead of the current system.
What exactly are the problems with the Electoral College? The most pressing seems to be that a candidate can win the presidency (win a majority of votes in the Electoral College) without winning a majority, or even plurality of votes cast. This seems, in every sense, undemocratic. This happened most recently, and controversially in the 2000 election, when (then) Governor George Bush won a majority in the Electoral College even though Vice President Al Gore received a greater number of votes.
Each state and Washington D.C is allocated a certain number of electors proportional to the population of the state (and in the case of Washington D.C, the population of the city). The number is equal to the number of congressman plus the number of senators for each state. For example California has 55 electors because it has 53 congressman and two senators. Most of the states allocate their electors in a winner-take-all system. The winner of the popular vote of the state receives all the electors from the state. This system is present in 48 of the 50 states. The two states where this system is not used are Nebraska and Maine. They each allocate their votes based on congressional district, with the overall winner of the state vote getting the two votes that correspond to the number of senators.
To become president a candidate needs a majority of votes in the Electoral College. There are 538 electoral votes in total (435 congressman plus 100 senators plus three votes for Washington D.C). To win a candidate needs 270 votes. If no candidate receives an absolute majority, or if there is a tie the House of Representatives chooses the president, with each state’s delegation getting one vote. The winner of a majority in the House becomes president. The vice-president is chosen by the Senate.
The national popular vote total is irrelevant for deciding who becomes president. All that matters are the state popular vote totals. In the current system the winner of a majority of electoral votes is not necessarily the same as the person who gets a majority, or the highest percent, of the popular vote. This has happened four times in history. In 1824, 1876, 1888, and most recently in 2000. Furthermore the winner of the Electoral College has not been the winner of the majority of national popular vote 16 times.
The fact that a candidate can receive a majority of votes, but still not win the election has led many people argue that the electoral college should be abolished; in a Gallup poll 61 percent of respondents said that they would rather have popular vote instead of the current system.
What exactly are the problems with the Electoral College? The most pressing seems to be that a candidate can win the presidency (win a majority of votes in the Electoral College) without winning a majority, or even plurality of votes cast. This seems, in every sense, undemocratic. This happened most recently, and controversially in the 2000 election, when (then) Governor George Bush won a majority in the Electoral College even though Vice President Al Gore received a greater number of votes.