The Electoral College

1. The Electoral College Who elects the President?

2. What is the EC? • The United States Electoral College is a term used to describe the 538 Presidential Electors who meet every four years to cast the electoral college votes for President and Vice President of the United States

3. Who Counts? • Every four years, on the Tuesday following the first Monday of November, millions of U.S. citizens go to local voting booths to elect, among other officials, the next president and vice president of their country. Their votes will be recorded and counted, and winners will be declared. But the results of the popular vote are not guaranteed to stand because the Electoral College has not cast its vote.

4. Your Vote Does Count! • When you cast your ballot, you are not only telling who you want to become President, but you are also selecting a list of electors to cast the ballot for President and Vice President.

5. Electoral College Map

6. The EC Map • It is possible to win the election by winning eleven states and disregarding the rest of the country. If one ticket were to take California (55 votes), Texas (34), New York (31), Florida (27) Illinois (21), Pennsylvania (21), Ohio (20), Michigan (17), Georgia (15), New Jersey (15), and North Carolina (15), that ticket would have 271 votes, which would be enough to win

7. How did ya get those numbers? • Each state has a number of electors equal to the number of its U.S. senators (2 in each state) plus the number of its U.S. representatives, which varies according to the state's population. Currently, the Electoral College includes 538 electors, 535 for the total number of congressional members, and three who represent Washington, D.C., as allowed by the 23rd Amendment

8. Cartogram representation of the Electoral College for the elections of 2004 and 2008. One square represents one electoral vote. The United States Electoral College is a term used to describe the 538 electors.

9. Why do we have the EC? • The Electoral College is a controversial mechanism of presidential elections that was created by the framers of the U.S. Constitution as a compromise for the presidential election process. At the time, some politicians believed a purely popular election was too reckless, while others objected to giving Congress the power to select the president. The compromise was to set up an Electoral College system that allowed voters to vote for electors, who would then cast their votes for candidates, a system described in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution

10. When and Where? • Presidential Electors meet in their respective state capitol buildings—or in the case of Washington, D.C., in the District of Columbia—on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December not and never as a national body. At the 51 separate meetings, held on the same day, the electors cast the electoral votes.

11. Who decides? • After the electors cast their ballots, these votes are then sealed and sent to the president of the Senate, who on Jan. 6 opens and reads the votes in the presence of both houses of Congress.

12. The winner is sworn into office at noon Jan. 20. Most of the time, electors cast their votes for the candidate who has received the most votes in that particular state. However, there have been times when electors have voted contrary to the people's decision, which is entirely legal. Inauguration Day

13. Winner of Popular Vote • In the elections of 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000, the candidate receiving an aggregate plurality of the popular vote did not become president. With no candidate having received a majority of electoral votes in 1824, the election was decided by the House of Representatives, and is thus distinct from the latter three elections in which a single candidate won in fact by an Electoral College majority.

14. Not the Winner! • 1824: John Quincy Adams, the son of former President John Adams, received more than 38,000 fewer votes than Andrew Jackson, but neither candidate won a majority of the Electoral College. Adams was awarded the presidency when the election was thrown to the House of Representatives.

15. Again – Not the Winner 1876: Nearly unanimous support from small states gave Rutherford B. Hayes a one-vote margin in the Electoral College, despite the fact that he lost the popular vote to Samuel J. Tilden by 264,000 votes. Hayes carried five out of the six smallest states (excluding Delaware). These five states plus Colorado gave Hayes 22 electoral votes with only 109,000 popular votes. At the time, Colorado had been just been admitted to the Union and decided to appoint electors instead of holding elections. So, Hayes won Colorado's three electoral votes with zero popular votes. It was the only time in U.S. history that small state support has decided an election.

16. Yet Again – Not the Winner • 1888: Benjamin Harrison lost the popular vote by 95,713 votes to Grover Cleveland, but won the electoral vote by 65. In this instance, some say the Electoral College worked the way it is designed to work by preventing a candidate from winning an election based on support from one region of the country. The South overwhelmingly supported Cleveland, and he won by more than 425,000 votes in six southern states. However, in the rest of the country he lost by more than 300,000 votes.

17. More Current and still not a winner! • In 2000, Al Gore received 50,992,335 votes nationwide and George W. Bush received 50,455,156 votes. After Bush was awarded the state of Florida, he had a total of 271 electoral votes, which beat Gore's 266 electoral votes.

18. How can Gore win the popular and lose the electoral vote? A state's electors is equal to the total number of Senators and Representatives. So each state has 2 more votes than its proportionate population. When the popular vote is so close, the number of STATES won becomes decisive. If early returns are confirmed on recount, Gov. Bush wins 31 states (61%), Vice-President Gore wins 19 and DC. Those 11 extra states in the Bush column convert to 22 additional electoral votes, which will be the winning margin for Gov. Bush. Is it fair? No less fair than the U.S. Senate, which gives every state 2 Senators regardless of its population. In the 2000 election, the popular vote goes one way, but the state vote goes the other way, in landslide proportions!  And it is only due to the state landslide that Gov. Bush has a chance. If Vice-President Gore squeezes out a win in Florida, he will win the Presidency having carried the lowest percentage of states (41%) of any President. Kennedy carried 46% of the states in 1960 and Carter carried 47% in 1976. As is always the case, the Electoral College punishes the candidate that appeals to a limited region of the country. If you look at the electoral map, you can see that Bush succeeded in winning states in every region (with the help of Mr. Nader).  Without Florida, Gore has no states in the South or the Mountain West.  Again--no accident.  The Electoral College is doing just what it is designed to do. Turn to page ___________ in your book 

19. The House has the Vote • Today, a candidate must receive 270 of the 538 votes to win the election. In cases where no candidate wins a majority of electoral votes, the decision is thrown to the House of Representatives. The House then selects the president by majority vote with each state delegation receiving one vote to cast for the three candidates who received the most electoral votes.