The Electoral College: How does it Work? And, does it Actually work?
The canceled recount in Florida during the 2000 presidential election pushed Bush over the 270 electoral votes. Al Gore won the popular vote. Image courtesy of Creative Commons
As we all should know the United States of America depends on the electoral college system to elect its next president. In this article, we will go over how it works and some of the arguments against the electoral college.
For starters, the electoral college (in the Article II, section I of the U.S. constitution) is a group of people that elect the president and the vice president of the United States. Since 1964, there have been a total of 538 electors (435 representatives, 100 senators, 3 electors from the District of Columbia) in each presidential election. To become president of the U.S. the Democratic and Republican candidate needs to reach the magic number of 270 electoral votes (or more). Here is a current map of the U.S. with the numbers for each state.
Often former politicians become electors. In fact, in the 2016 presidential election Bill Clinton was an elector for the state of New York. Each state has their own process as how they select their electors. But, generally, Democrats and Republicans each nominate their state of electors. In addition to this, each state is given a number of electoral votes. That number is determined by the states population, and can change every ten years when Americans fill out the Census. In other words, states can gain or lose electoral votes.
The Maryland electoral college is sworn in. Courtesy of Tom Nappi CC
In the U.S., we count the popular vote. Historically, it has been the case in four U.S. elections that a candidate wins the popular vote, but not the electoral college. In the 2016 U.S. election, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but lost in the electoral colleges count. Some see this as a flaw of the electoral college, that it ignores the will of too many voters. Electors that go rogue are dubbed “faithless electors.” But, it is important to know that in 24 states electors are not obligated to vote in favor of their state’s popular vote. Those states are: Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.
Some politicians believe the electoral college is an outmoded system and have called for its reformation, or abolishment. Most arguments are concerned about accurate representation of all Americans. One of the reasons some Americans may feel this way is because the electoral college makes it possible for candidates to only focus on states with a high number of electoral votes, while ignoring other states completely. In fact, it has become a strategy to focus more on states like Texas, Florida and Michigan.
Don’t miss your opportunity to exercise your American right to vote. Make sure to request your mail-in ballot, or stop by your election poll sites on November 3.
