Understanding The Electoral College (Presidential Election Process)
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So What Happens When I Vote?
One of the most confusing concepts in American government is the concept of the electoral college. Often when a person walks into the voting both it is assumed that their vote is somehow put into a national pool and tabulated and the person with the most votes from the most people becomes president. However this is not the case and as we saw in the election of 2000 in fact when then candidate George W. Bush was elected he lost the popular vote but still won thanks to the electoral college.
So how does the electoral college work?
The mechanics of the electoral college are quite simple. Each state is given a set number of electors. The number of electors each state will have is based on the number of representatives it has in the House of Representatives and the Senate. For example California has 54 electoral votes at the time of this writing. It gets 54 because:
2 Members in the U.S. Senate + 52 Members in the House of Representatives
54 Total Members = 54 Electors
The state picks two sets of electors, one set that has pledged to vote for one candidate and his or her running mate and a second set that has pledged to vote for the other candidate and his or her running mate. (Note that I am assuming in this example that there are only two parties running, there could be more if there were more than two significant parties. I am simply using this as an example.) When a person goes to vote ultimately they are not voting directly for their candidate, they are voting for the elector that will choose the candidate they voted for on their ballot. In most states (with the exception of a couple) the candidate who gets the most votes by the people in that state gets that state’s electoral votes.
So how many electoral votes does it take to win?
To win a presidential election in the United States it takes 270 electoral votes to win. But there is always the possibility of a tie if each candidate gets 269. A candidate must receive at least 270 votes. If no one gets 270 (i.e. if there were 4 or 5 candidates and no one reached the 270 mark) the election is then decided in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
In the United States the House of Representatives has 435 total members which is apportioned based on the population of each state. The more people that live in a state the more members in the House that state will have. In the Senate there are 100 members, 2 from each state, regardless of the population. When we add these two numbers up it gets us to 535. However during presidential elections the nation’s capital, Washington, D. C. is given 3 electoral votes as well. Add those 3 electoral votes to our 535 and we wind up with a total of 538 electoral votes. When divided in half we wind up with 269 and that is when the possibility of a tie comes into play.
If there is a tie in the electoral college or if no one gets the needed 270 electoral votes, then the election is thrown into Congress. The election of the president is then decided by the House of Representatives and the election of the vice-president is decided by the Senate. According to the Constitution the top 5 vote getters in the electoral college is the pool from which the House and Senate decide the next president/vice president. Theoretically a candidate who won the fewest electoral votes could still win a presidential election if it was decided that way in the Congress.
So why use this process to elect the president?
There can be arguments made both for and against the system used in American politics. The concept of the electoral college blends two rights, the right of the individuals and the rights of the states. The only way to protect state rights is to elect the leader of all of the states while at the same time still ensuring some popular influence through the use of the electoral college. The president serves as an executive of all of the individual states as well as executive of all of the American people. It is important to realize that in a sense there is a dual citizenship for Americans. They are not only a citizen of the entire United States but a citizen of the state in which they reside. So to protect the interests of their state the electoral college is the tool in which this is done. This issue was of particular importance when the nation was first formed. Each state worried that they would loose their sovereignty. Think of the 50 states in the United States each as 50 individuals and it will make more sense as to why we have the electoral college and even the Senate.
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© 2010
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The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. Elections wouldn't be about winning states. Every vote, everywhere would be counted for and directly assist the candidate for whom it was cast. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states.
In the 2012 election, pundits and campaign operatives already agree that only 14 states and their voters will matter under the current winner-stake-all laws (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state) used by 48 of the 50 states. Candidates will not care about 72% of the voters- voters-in 19 of the 22 smallest and medium-small states, and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX. 2012 campaigning would be even more obscenely exclusive than 2008 and 2004. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. Policies important to the citizens of ‘flyover’ states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes--enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for president. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government. The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government. The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, along district lines (as has been the case in Maine and Nebraska), or national lines.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong in virtually every state, partisan, and demographic group surveyed in recent polls in closely divided battleground states: CO-- 68%, IA --75%, MI-- 73%, MO-- 70%, NH-- 69%, NV-- 72%, NM-- 76%, NC-- 74%, OH-- 70%, PA -- 78%, VA -- 74%, and WI -- 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE --75%, ME -- 77%, NE -- 74%, NH --69%, NV -- 72%, NM -- 76%, RI -- 74%, and VT -- 75%; in Southern and border states: AR --80%, KY -- 80%, MS --77%, MO -- 70%, NC -- 74%, and VA -- 74%; and in other states polled: CA -- 70%, CT -- 74% , MA -- 73%, MN – 75%, NY -- 79%, WA -- 77%, and WV- 81%.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in AR (6), CT (7), DE (3), DC (3), ME (4), MI (17), NV (5), NM (5), NY (31), NC (15), and OR (7), and both houses in CA (55), CO (9), HI (4), IL (21), NJ (15), MD (10), MA(12), RI (4), VT (3), and WA (11). The bill has been enacted by DC, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA, and WA. These 7 states possess 76 electoral votes -- 28% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
Since 1824 there have been 16 presidential elections in which a candidate was elected or reelected without gaining a majority of the popular vote. – including Lincoln (1860), Wilson (1912, and 1916), Truman (1948), Kennedy (1960), Nixon (1968), and Clinton (1992 and 1996).
American Romance Level 7 Commenter 17 months ago
Same thing happened when Clinton was voted in, the population voted against him, electorial gave it to him, I just threw that in because the liberals love to say this about Bush and ignore the same for their own.