Electoral College System
Who really elects the
President of the United States?
Every fourth November, after almost two years of campaign hype and money, over 90 million Americans vote for the presidential candidates. Then, in the middle of December, the president and vice president of the United States are really elected by the votes of only 538 citizens – the “electors”of the Electoral College.
When you vote for a presidential candidate you are really be voting to instruct the electors from your state to cast their votes for the same candidate. For example, if you vote for the Republican candidate, you are really voting for anelector who will be “pledged” to vote for the Republican candidate. The candidate who wins the popular vote in a state wins all the pledged votes of the state’s electors.
The Electoral College system was established in Article II of the Constitution and ameded by the12th amendment in 1804.
Each state gets a number of electors equal to its number of members in the U.S. House of Represnentatives plus one for each of its two U.S. Senators. The District of Columbia gets three electors. While state laws determine how electors are chosen, they are generally selected by the political party committees within the states.
Each elector gets on vote. Thus, a state with eight electors would cast eight votes. There are currently 538 electors and the votes of a majority of them – 270 votes – are required to be elected. Since Electoral College representation is based on congressional representation, states with larger populations get more Electoral College votes.
Should none of the candidates win 270 electoral votes, the 12th Amendment kicks in and the election is decided by the House of Representatives. The combined representatives of each state get on vote and a simple majority of states is required to win. This has only happened twice. Presidents Thomas Jefferson in 1801 and John Quincy Adams in 1825 were elected by the House of Representatives.
While the state electors are "pledged" to vote for the candidate of the part that chose them, nothing in the Constituion requires them to do so. In rare instances, an elector will defect and not vote for his or her party's candidate. Such "faithless" votes rarely chance the outocome of the election and laws of some states prohibit electors from casting them.
So we will all go vote on Tuesday, Nov. 7, and before the sun sets in Californina at least on of the TV networks will have declared a winner. By midnight, one of the candidates will have probably claimed victory and some wil have conceded defeat. But not until the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, when the electors of the Electoral College meet in their state capitals and cast their votes will we really have a new president and vice president elect.