ELECTORAL COLLEGE
What is the Electoral College?
The Electoral College is the group of citizens designated by the states to cast votes for the president and vice president on behalf of state citizens. The process for selecting electors varies from state to state, but usually the political parties nominate electors at state party conventions or by a vote of the party's central committee. The voters in each state, by casting votes for president and vice president, choose the electors on the day of the general election. The Electoral College, not the popular vote, elects the president, but the two votes are tied closely.
How does the Electoral College work?
When Americans cast their votes for president and vice president, they are actually voting for the set of electors assigned to a specific candidate. The electors cast their votes on December 15, and Congress officially counts and announces the results in January.
How are electors chosen?
The process for choosing electors varies from state to state. In most cases, political parties nominate their electors, often to recognize an individual’s service and allegiance to the party.
What determines the number of electoral votes per state?
There are 538 electors in the Electoral College; 270 votes are needed to win the presidential election.
What determines the number of electoral votes per state?
The number of electors is equal to a state’s number of representatives (based on population) and senators (two per state) in the U.S. Congress. In addition, the District of Columbia has three Electoral College votes.
What purpose does the Electoral College serve?
The Electoral College system was devised by the framers of the Constitution to ensure that governing powers go not only to a national government and to the people but also to the states.
What is the total number of electors?
There are 538 electors in the Electoral College; 270 votes are needed to win the presidential election.
What if no candidate wins the required 270 electoral votes?
The House of Representatives is required to vote for the president if no candidate receives 270 of the 538 electoral votes. Each state delegation has a single vote, and an absolute majority of state votes (currently 26) is required for the candidate to become the president-elect.
How can a candidate win the popular vote but lose the presidency?
Forty-eight of the 50 states use the “winner take all” system, and award all of their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in that state. It is therefore possible for a candidate to receive more votes nationwide but still lose the electoral vote count.
Is it unusual for the electoral vote results to differ from the popular vote?
This has happened three times in U.S. history, most recently in 2000. This typically happens when the candidate who wins the most Electoral College votes wins the popular vote in some states by narrow margins and loses others by large margins. For example, all of California’s 55 electoral votes go to the winner of the popular vote in California, regardless of whether the candidate’s margin of victory in that state is one percent or 20 percent.
What is a battleground state?
“Battleground,” or “swing” states, are those in which voters are so evenly divided in their political allegiances that either major party candidate could win the state’s electoral votes.
How does the Electoral College elect the president?
The Electoral College system gives each state the same number of electoral votes as it has members of Congress. The District of Columbia is allocated three electoral votes. There are a total of 538 votes in the Electoral College; a candidate for president must get 270 to win (a simple majority). All but two states have a winner-take-all system, in which the candidate who gets the most popular votes in the state is allocated all of the state's electoral votes.
The electors usually gather in their state capitals in December to cast their votes. The electoral votes are then sent to Washington, where they are counted in the presence of a joint session of Congress in January.
If no presidential candidate wins a majority of electoral votes, the 12th Amendment to the Constitution provides for the presidential election to be decided by the House of Representatives. In such situations, the House selects the president by majority vote, choosing from the three candidates who received the greatest number of electoral votes. Each state would cast one vote.
If no vice presidential candidate wins a majority of electoral votes, the Senate selects the vice president by majority vote, with each senator choosing from the two candidates who received the greatest number of electoral votes.
For which races is the Electoral College used?
The Electoral College is used only to select the president and vice president.
Has any president been elected without a majority of the popular vote? There have been 17 presidential elections in which the winner did not receive a majority of the popular vote cast. The first of these was John Quincy Adams in the election of 1824, and the most recent was George W. Bush in 2000.
The founders of the nation devised the Electoral College system as part of their plan to share power between the states and the national government. Under the federal system adopted in the U.S. Constitution, the nationwide popular vote has no legal significance. As a result, it is possible that the electoral votes awarded on the basis of state elections could produce a different result than the nationwide popular vote. Nevertheless, the individual citizen's vote is important to the outcome of each election.