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The Electoral College

One of the most important events in American government and politics is the election of the president of the United States, and on Tuesday, November 6th, Americans will cast their ballots. This event is held every four years and is often compared to a race. We say that someone is running for office and that the presidential race is on. So how is our President elected? Good question!!! There is actually a system called the Electoral College that determines who will win the election. Often ignored, Americans had a lesson on the workings of the Electoral College after the 2000 election, in which Al Gore won the popular vote but George W. Bush became President. George Bush won because he had five more electoral votes than Al Gore. Because of how the system is set up, it is possible for one candidate to win the popular vote and another to win the electoral vote. Watch the video that describes the election results and record what you see below.

Definitions electoral college

noun ( often initial capital letters )

a body of electors chosen by the voters in each state to elect the President and vice President of the U.S. popular vote
noun

the vote for a U.S. presidential candidate made by the qualified voters, as opposed to that made by the electoral college. partisan
noun

an adherent or supporter of a person, group, party, or cause, especially a person who shows a biased, emotional allegiance.

So how does it work? Glad you asked!!! People actually vote for a group of electors when they go to the polls on Election Day. These electors have pledged to support a party's nominee for president. In many states the ballot lists only the names of the nominees and not the names of the electors, so many people believe they are voting for the president. The History In 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention decided on this system of indirect election of the president. Long debates took place about how to make sure the best candidate would be chosen as president. Some delegates supported a direct election by citizens. Others favored having Congress choose the president. Still others thought that state legislatures should make the choice. The delegates finally agreed on a compromise. Electors chosen by each state would elect the president. Ordinary citizens in each state would have a say this way, but the final decision would be made by people who were better informed about the candidates and the issues. The Electoral College, this system of presidential electors, is still in effect today, although some adjustments have been made over the years. The electors voted for two candidates at first. The one with the highest number of votes became president. The one with the second-highest number became vice president. In 1796, political foes were chosen for the two posts -- Federalist John Adams for president and Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson for vice president. There was a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr in the next election. The House of Representatives had to decide who would be president. The fact that the system needed to be adjusted was clear. The 12th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1804. Candidates are now nominated to run only for president or only for vice president. Electors vote for president and vice president separately. How the states elect electors has changed, too. Some states held direct popular elections for the electors in the beginning. The state legislatures made the choice in other states. All the states gradually adopted direct popular elections for electors. There were no political parties when the Constitution was written. They soon developed, and the party organizations in each state began proposing a slate, or list, of electors who were pledged to vote for their party's nominee.

Voters no longer choose individual electors. Voters choose between party slates. Political parties want winner-take-all elections for electors. This means that the slate that receives the most popular votes wins all the state's electoral votes. All the states except Maine use this winner-take-all system today. A nominee needs a majority of the electoral votes to win the presidency. You'll notice, on election night, that the TV commentators keep track of the states each nominee wins. They add up the number of electoral votes that each state win represents. The race is over as soon as one of the nominees gets one more than half, or 270, of the total of electoral votes. By the end of election night or early the next morning, the nation usually knows the winner of the election. The president is not officially elected until the members of the Electoral College cast their state's votes in December, however, and Congress counts those votes on January 6. There were just 13 states and only 69 electoral votes when George Washington was elected. Our nation has grown a lot since then. Today there are 538 electoral votes, but the number of electoral votes for each state is still determined the way it was in Washington's day. The Constitution allows each state to have as many electoral votes as it has representatives in Congress. The size of the state's population is the basis for the number of representatives. No state has fewer than three electoral votes. This is because each state has two senators and at least one representative in the House of Representatives. At the beginning of every decade, every ten years, the government takes a census to determine the population of each state. It might lose electoral votes if a state's population has decreased. It may receive more electoral votes than it previously had if a state's population has increased. The most recent electoral map was drawn up after the 2000 census. Many have criticized the Electoral College system over the years. Although some attempts to change it have been successful, two important criticisms still remain unanswered. First, there is no guarantee that an elector who is pledged to vote for a certain candidate will actually do so. Only a few electors have switched their vote, and none changed the outcome of an election. The winner-take-all system is the second criticism. By getting just one more popular vote that the opponent, a nominee can get all of a state's electoral votes. As a result, three nominees have been elected president even though their opponents received more popular votes nationally.