Why there is an Electoral College and how it works

By Seth Borenstein

AP Sci­ence Writer

Pres­i­dents are elected not by national pop­u­lar vote but by an 18th cen­tury con­sti­tu­tional com­pro­mise called the Elec­toral College.

HOW IT FORMED

When framers were draft­ing the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion, there were two com­pet­ing ideas on how to elect the pres­i­dent. One group said Con­gress should do it; the other said it should be a national vote of eli­gi­ble cit­i­zens. There also were dis­putes over how much slaves should count in rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Con­gress and over how power would be dis­trib­uted between small and large states. The com­pro­mise became part of the sec­ond arti­cle of the Con­sti­tu­tion, although the words “Elec­toral Col­lege” are not included. The elec­tors pick the pres­i­dent and vice president.

VOTE TOTALS

Each state gets one elec­toral vote for each of its rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the House and Sen­ate. The Dis­trict of Colum­bia gets three votes. All told, there are 538 votes in the Elec­toral Col­lege. A can­di­date must have at least 270 to win. Except for Maine and Nebraska, states award all their elec­toral votes to the can­di­date who wins the state. In Maine and Nebraska, votes are appor­tioned by con­gres­sional dis­tricts. So in 2008, even though John McCain won Nebraska’s statewide pop­u­lar vote, Barack Obama won the 2nd Con­gres­sional Dis­trict and earned one of the state’s five elec­toral votes.

HOW IT WORKS

Each state’s elec­tors will meet on Dec. 17 in their home states and cast their votes for pres­i­dent and vice pres­i­dent. Con­gress will meet on Jan. 6, 2013, to con­duct an offi­cial tally of the elec­toral votes. Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden will pre­side and declare the winner.

PROBLEM AREAS

If no can­di­date gets at least 270 elec­toral votes, the elec­tion goes to the newly elected House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Each state del­e­ga­tion in the House gets one vote, and a can­di­date must win a major­ity of the states to be elected pres­i­dent. This hap­pened in 1824, when Andrew Jack­son won the most pop­u­lar votes and the most elec­toral votes, but four can­di­dates split the elec­toral votes and no one received a major­ity. The race went to the House and John Quincy Adams, who came in sec­ond, was cho­sen as pres­i­dent. Three other times, can­di­dates won the Elec­toral Col­lege even though they lost the pop­u­lar vote — in 1876, 1888 and 2000.

Posted by AP News on Oct 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.