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The Electoral College

Unit II: Parties, Campaigns,Voters and Elections

Question: What is perhaps the mostmisunderstood institution in AmericanGovernment?

• The Electoral College• What do we know about it?

• It’s found in Article II, Section 1 of theConstitution.

“ Each state shall appoint, in such manner as theLegislature thereof may direct, a Number ofElectors, equal to the whole number ofSenators and Representatives to which thestate may be entitled to in Congress… TheElectors shall meet in their respective states,and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom atleast one shall not be an inhabitant of the samestate with themselves.”

What else do we know?

• The Founding Fathers wrestled with thequestion of how to elect the president.• Popular vote was deemed too dangerous, not

just because of the idea of “mobocracy,” butbecause in a country with little communicationit was assumed that each state would run itsown candidate and the winner would not have apopular mandate.

• Neither did the framers want Congress or StateLegislatures to choose the President- too muchpotential for corruption…

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The end result of theirdiscussion is the systemwe have in which…• Every adult citizen is eligible to vote in the

presidential election in their state. Whenyou do this, you are actually expressing apreference to give your states’ electors thedirection in which they should vote.

• The State Legislatures choose the mannerin which electors are selected. (RememberAZ- in our state, the party of the popular votewinner chooses our electors.)

• The House picks the winner if no one winsa majority in the Electoral College.

• The Senate picks the V.P. if no one wins amajority of the Electoral College

So, for example…

• Arizona isentitled to 10electoral votes

• California isentitled to 55electoral votes

• Alaska isentitled to 3electoral votes

How do you winelectoral votes?

• By winning states• The Electoral College is based on

the principal of winner-take-all. Inorder to win a states electoralvotes, you just need to win theplurality of votes cast in thatstate.

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2000 Presidential ElectionPopular Vote TotalsVote totals are as shown on each State's Certificate of Ascertainment. The highest number is highlighted.

5,963,07023,05517,48497,4882,912,2532,912,790FL

201,8941,322010,576171,92318,073DC

327,5291,0897778,307180,068137,288DE

1,460,17713,2314,73164,452816,659561,104CT

1,741,36817,49410,46591,434738,227883,748CO

10,965,85673,53044,987418,7075,861,2034,567,429CA1

921,7815,2947,35813,421422,768472,940AR

1,532,0167,00512,37345,645685,341781,652AZ

284,4924,1515,19228,74779,004167,398AK

1,666,2727,8146,35118,323692,611941,173AL

Total VotesOtherBuchanan / FosterNader / LaDukeGore / LiebermanBush / CheneyState

So how is it that you can win thepopular vote and still lose theelectoral college?

• This happens when you win largestates by small margins and losesmall states by large margins

Candidate A Candidate B

CA 16,500, 050 16,499,950

(33,000,000)

AK 100 399,900

(400,000)

When you do the math, Candidate A wins 16,500,150popular votes, but wins 55 electoral votes. Candidate Bwins 16,899,850 popular votes, but wins 3 electoralvotes.

Therefore, Candidate B wins the popular vote, butCandidate A wins the electoral college.

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So how many times in the nation’s historyhas the winner of the popular vote lost theelectoral college?

• 1824- John Q.Adams defeatsAndrew Jackson

• 1876- Rutherford B.Hayes defeatsSamuel Tilden

• 1888- BenjaminHarrison defeatsGrover Cleveland

• 2000- George W.Bush defeats AlGore

Our most recent election…Barack Obama – 365John McCain - 173

Major complaints aboutthe Electoral College…• It’s outdated… with modern

communication it would not be difficult forcandidates to run national campaigns.

• It’s undemocratic- how can a person whowins the popular vote lose the election?Plus, almost half the states do not requiretheir electors to vote for the candidatewho won the popular vote in that state.

• It gives an advantage to big states thathave more electoral votes becausecandidates spend more time campaigningthere.

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All valid complaints,BUT consider this…• The Electoral College actually gives

disproportionate power to smallstates.• California gets 55 electoral votes for

33,871,648 people. That’s one E.C. voteper 618, 848 people.

• The nine smallest states combined have27 electoral votes for 6,286,634 people.That’s one E.C. vote per 232, 838 people.

• This ensures that candidates actually docampaign in those small states becausethey can swing the election.

Some say we should make electoralvotes proportional to the popular vote,not winner-take-all.

Maybe, but then you run into the possibility that noone gets to the magic number 270. If no one getsthere, then the House chooses the President.If this formula were followed, then Ross Perotwould have won approximately 107 electoral votesin 1992, making it more difficult for either Clinton orBush to get to 270.For better or worse, the Electoral College preservesthe two-party system because third partycandidates can not win any E.C. votes unless theywin an entire state.

Why don’t we justabolish it altogether?• This is possible, however, it would require

a Constitutional Amendment, AND it couldlead to the possibility that regionalcandidates would arise, causing thepopular vote to be split among 3 or morecandidates, with the winner having no realpopular mandate (Remember what thefounding fathers were afraid of?)

• Or, the candidates would campaign in onlythe 5-6 largest cities in America, virtuallyignoring everywhere else.

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More cool maps…

Why should we keep theElectoral College?

• It preserves federalism – thestates have a role in theelection of the president. Toeliminate that role would givelicense to ignore the smallerstates at the behest of the largeones.

How is the Electoral Collegelike the World Series inBaseball?• It’s not the number of runs you

score, it’s the number of gamesyou win.

• Just like, it’s not the number ofvotes you get, it’s the number ofstates you win.

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Onemorecoolgraph…