The United States does not elect its president by popular vote.
Instead, a process known as the Electoral College is used.
What is the Electoral College?
How did it come to be used?
Once every four years, the people of the nation vote for the presidency on the first Tuesday
after the first Monday in November.
When these votes are cast, they don’t truly decide who is becoming president.
Instead, they are voting for “electors” who will then represent their state in a later
voting process.
These electors make up what is known as the Electoral College.
The Electoral College is the process used to determine who wins the presidential election.
It is a system in which each state gets a certain number of electoral votes.
The number of electoral votes that each state receives is determined by that state’s number
of representatives in the House of Representatives, added to the number of senators from that
state.
Each state has two senators.
Therefore, to determine how many electors a state has, it would be that state’s number
of representatives, plus two.
For example, in the 2012 presidential election, California had the most electors with 55.
This is because California has 53 representatives in the House of Representatives and two senators.
Texas had the second most electors in the 2012 election with 38.
This is because Texas had 36 representatives and two senators.
Less populated states, such as Alaska, Wyoming, and North Dakota, only have three electors
apiece, since they have one representative and two senators.
The District of Columbia (Washington D.C.) also has three electoral votes (this was granted
by the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution).
In most states, the Electoral College process is a “winner take all” system.
This means that the electors of a state will cast their votes for whichever candidate wins
that state.
For example, Oregon has seven electoral votes.
If the Democrat candidate wins in Oregon, then that candidate will receive all seven
of Oregon’s electoral votes.
Meanwhile, Georgia has 16 electoral votes.
If the Republican candidate wins the most votes in Georgia, then all 16 electors from
the state of Georgia will vote for that candidate.
There are various methods used to determine who these electors will be.
In some states, they are nominated, just like any other candidate.
In other states, they are chosen by their political parties at state party conventions.
Still in other states, committees representing each presidential candidate will name who
the electors will be.
The Electoral College never meets as a group.
On the Monday after the second Wednesday in December, that state’s electors will gather
in the capital of their state to officially cast their ballots for president.
At that time, they will cast two different ballots, one for the presidency, and one for
the vice-presidency.
An elector is not necessarily required to vote for the candidate he or she is supposed
to (meaning the candidate that won their state).
Occasionally, there are “faithless electors” who will vote for an opposing candidate.
For example, in 1948, one elector in Tennessee chose to cast an electoral vote for Dixiecrat
candidate Strom Thurmond.
However, this is rare, and many states have laws preventing electors from doing so.
For a candidate to win the presidency, he or she must secure a majority of the electoral
votes.
There are a total of 538 electoral votes.
This means to win the presidency, a candidate must have at least 270 electoral votes.
If neither candidate wins the necessary number of votes, the election will then be decided
by the House of Representatives.
Only twice in the nation’s history has the House of Representatives been needed to choose
the president.
This method was used to determine the winner of the election of 1800 and the election of
1824.
Most of the time, the candidate who wins the nationwide popular vote will also win the
Electoral College vote.
However, there have been five presidential elections in which one candidate won the popular
vote, yet a different candidate prevailed in the Electoral College and became president.
This scenario occurred in the elections of 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016.
The Electoral College process has been criticized by many people over the years.
Some feel that it allows candidates to place too much of an emphasis on the heavily-populated
states and ignore the smaller, less populated states.
In fact, a candidate could win the presidency by winning as few as 11 states (assuming those
states were the largest and most populated states such as California, Texas, New York,
and Florida).
Others feel that use of the Electoral College discourages voter turnout.
Since the Electoral College is a “winner take all” system in most states, some voters
feel that their vote truly doesn’t count.
For example, a state such as Oklahoma typically votes Republican in presidential elections.
Therefore, Democrats in Oklahoma may choose to stay home and not vote, since it is already
known that Oklahoma’s electoral votes will go to the Republican candidate.
Additionally, some feel that the Electoral College places too much emphasis on the all-important
“swing states.”
These are states where it is difficult to determine who the clear winner will be.
In the past several elections, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania became key swing states,
and thus, the presidential candidates spent most of their time in those states, largely
ignoring the rest of the nation.
Those in favor of the Electoral College argue that this system is more consistent with the
Founding Fathers’ original intent.
Those who wrote the Constitution were very concerned about small states maintaining their
voice.
In fact, this concern is why the Electoral College exists.
When creating the Constitution, the smaller states preferred the idea of the Electoral
College because they feared that if the president were chosen by popular vote, then the presidency
would be controlled by the larger, more populated states.
There have been more efforts to either amend, or do away with, the Electoral College than
any other aspect of the American government.
In fact, more than 700 attempts have been made to amend the Constitution and eliminate
the Electoral College.
All of these attempts have failed.
Therefore, it is safe to conclude that the Electoral College will continue to be a part
of American presidential elections for many years to come.