Politics & International Relations
Electoral College
The Electoral College is a body of electors established by the United States Constitution, responsible for formally electing the President and Vice President. Each state is allocated a certain number of electors based on its representation in Congress. The candidate who wins the majority of electoral votes becomes the President.
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7 Key excerpts on "Electoral College"
eBook - PDFCrisis at the Polls
An Electoral Reform Handbook
- Robert M. Hardaway(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Greenwood(Publisher)
ORIGINS OF THE ‘‘Electoral College’’ Contrary to popular belief, the Electoral College is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. Article II of the Constitution and the Twelfth Amendment refer to ‘‘electors,’’ but not to the ‘‘Electoral College.’’ In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton discussed the process of selecting the ‘‘Chief Magistrate of the United States’’ and ‘‘a small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass,’’ but the term ‘‘Electoral College’’ is never referenced. 4 In The Federalist Hamilton wrote of the Electoral College, ‘‘I … hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an emi- nent degree all the advantages; the union of which was to be desired.’’ 5 The genesis of the ‘‘elector’’ is found in the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806), where an elector was one of a number of princes of the various German states within the Holy Roman Empire who had a right to participate in the election of the German king (who generally was crowned as emperor). The term ‘‘college’’ is derived from the Latin word collegium, which refers to any group of persons that acts as a unit. It was not until the early 1800s that the term ‘‘electoral col- lege’’ came into general usage as the unofficial designation for the group of citi- zens selected to cast votes for president and vice president. 6 The ‘‘Electoral College’’ was first recorded into federal law in 1848. 7 The United States Code provides that ‘‘each state may, by law, provide for the filling of any vacancies which may occur in its college of electors when such college meets to give its electoral vote.’’ 8 Presently, the Electoral College consists of 538 electors; there is one elector for each of the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, one elector for each of the 100 U.S. Senators, and three for the District of Columbia by virtue of the Twenty-Third Amendment.
eBook - PDFPolitical and Civic Leadership
A Reference Handbook
- Richard A. Couto(Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
T he concept of electoral systems has been discussed repeatedly in political literature, albeit from differ-ent points of view. Besides the descriptive analysis of the functioning of electoral systems in one particular country and normative statements concerning the most opportune electoral system, several authors have also focused their comparative research on both the classifica-tion and the different effects and consequences of electoral systems. With special attention to the relation between electoral systems and the stability of governments, the rep-resentation of women and minorities, intraparty competi-tion, political participation, regionalism, and party organization have received quite some attention. The main draw, however, has been the study on the effects of party systems, particularly on the number of parties. This focus on the consequences of electoral systems does not fully explain the variety and complexity of elec-toral systems. For that we have to look to their intent. In simple terms, elections, in democratic settings, are to make sure people and ideas are represented, including residents of geographic places, demographic groups, and people with a variety of political opinions and that votes are not wasted. Even in an advanced democratic country such as the United States, these goals are often thwarted by election mechanisms designed to achieve other goals. The Electoral College of the United States uses the pop-ular vote only on a state-by-state, not national, basis in the election for president. This makes it possible for someone to win electoral votes and to lose the national public vote. This convoluted measure remains from the Constitution’s framers’ intent to prevent someone becom-ing president based on temporary popularity or charis-matic appeal.
- Alexander S. Belenky(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Springer Open(Publisher)
Chapter 4 Inconvenient Facts About the Electoral College Abstract The Electoral College has its internal logic and mathematics that are not easy to understand in depth. Constitutionally, a person voted for as President in the Electoral College and received any majority of votes from all the appointed electors (as a result of counting these electoral votes in Congress in the January that follows the election year) becomes President. (This is, however, the case provided this person meets all the constitutional eligibility requirements of the of fi ce of President.) However, since the 1824 election, votes cast in all the states that appoint their electors by holding popular elections have been tallied. This tally of votes cast (nowadays) in 50 states and in D.C. for electors of presidential candidates does not have any constitutional status. Yet it is customarily considered as the popular vote that presidential candidates receive nationwide. This chapter analyzes the concep-tions of (a) the popular vote, (b) the voting power of a voter (c) the voting power of a state, and (d) the will of the nation in a presidential election, along with their customary understanding by a sizable part of the American people. The chapter presents percentages of the popular vote that could have elected President one of the candidates in the elections held from 1948 to 2004. Keywords A priori voting power of a voter Á A priori voting power of a state Á Apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives Á Minimum fraction of the popular vote to elect a President Á Popular vote Á Will of the nation The Electoral College has its internal logic and mathematics that are not easy to understand in depth. Constitutionally, a person voted for as President in the Electoral College and received any majority of votes from all the appointed electors becomes President.
eBook - PDF- Jonathan K. Hodge, Richard E. Klima(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- American Mathematical Society(Publisher)
Chapter 9 The Ultimate College Experience I consider it completely unimportant who will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how. – Joseph Stalin Focus Questions In this chapter, we’ll explore the following questions: • What is the Electoral College, and how does it work? • What is the winner-take-all rule, and what are its implications for the Electoral College and U.S. presidential elections? • Why was the Electoral College created, and why is it still used today? • Are there any viable alternatives to the Electoral College? If so, what are they? Warmup 9.1. As you may know, U.S. presidential elections are decided using an institution called the Electoral College. However, suppose for this question that the winner of the 2016 U.S. presidential election was deter-mined using instant runoff based on the popular votes received by each candidate nationwide. These popular vote totals, as reported on the web site of the U.S. Federal Election Commission ( http://www.fec.gov ), are shown in Table 9.1. For convenience, suppose Donald Trump was the sec-ond choice of all of the Gary Johnson voters in the election, and Hillary Clinton was the second choice of all of the Jill Stein voters. 143 144 CHAPTER 9. THE Electoral College Candidate Popular Votes Hillary Clinton 65,853,516 Donald Trump 62,984,825 Gary Johnson 4,489,221 Jill Stein 1,457,216 Others 1,884,459 Table 9.1.
eBook - ePub- Stephen J. Wayne(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- CQ Press(Publisher)
www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/index.php .THE Electoral College SYSTEM AND THE OVERREPRESENTATION OF LARGE COMPETITIVE STATESThe Electoral College system also creates a representational bias. Initially designed as a dual compromise between the large and small states and between proponents of a federal structure and of a more centralized national government, it provided an alternative to the other methods considered for choosing the president: legislative selection or a direct popular vote. The framers did not want Congress to select the president because they feared that legislative selection would jeopardize the executive’s independence. Nor did they want the people to do so because they lacked faith in the average person’s judgment and in the states’ ability to conduct fair and honest elections. Moreover, the delegates at the Constitutional Convention wanted a leader, not a demagogue, a person selected on the basis of personal qualifications, not popular appeal. Finally, they hoped that their electoral system, which had electors voting at the same time in their respective states, would limit the potential for cabal, intrigue, and group dominance over the election outcome. Given the state of communications and transportation in 1787, distance provided safety, or so the framers thought.According to the original plan, states would be allocated electors in proportion to their congressional representation in the House and Senate, thereby giving some advantage to the smallest states because of their equal representation in the Senate, an advantage that remains in place today. Wyoming, the least populous state, has a population that is less than 1.5 percent of California’s, but Wyoming has 5.6 percent of California’s electoral votes. Other inequities result from the apportionment of House seats. Montana’s population is almost twice the size of Wyoming’s, yet both states have the same representation in the Electoral College.
No longer available |Learn more- Stephen Wayne(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 24 Chapter 1 21. Richard M. Scammon and Alice V. McGillivray, America Votes 12 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1977), 15. 22. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, do not always vote as a bloc because they do not select all their electors on an at-large basis. Two are chosen at large and the remaining ones are elected in each of the states’ congressional districts. In 2008, Nebraska’s electoral vote was divided, with Republican John McCain winning four and Democrat Barack Obama one. McCain won the popular statewide vote as well as the vote in two of the state’s three congressional districts. In 2016, Trump won one of the two congressional districts in Maine and Clinton the other as well as the overall state vote. Thus, she received three electoral votes to Trump’s one in that state. 23. Thomas Brunell and Bernard Grofman, “The 1992 and 1996 Presidential Elections: Whatever Happened to the Republican Electoral College Lock?” Presidential Studies Quarterly 112 (Winter 1997): 134–138. 24. Nate Silver, “Donald Trump Had a Superior Electoral College Strategy,” Five Thirty Eight , https://fivethirtyeight.com/donald-trump-had-a-superior-electoral-college- strategy 25. The 2017 population estimates are from the U. S. Census Bureau. American Fact Finder , https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview. xhtml?src=bkmk 26. Lawrence D. Longley and James D. Dana, “The Biases of the Electoral College in the 1990s,” Polity 25 (Fall 1992): 134. There are two other, less obvious, biases in the Electoral College.
eBook - PDFBeyond the Electoral Connection
A Reassessment of the Role of Voting in Contemporary American Politics
- Kim Ezra Shienbaum(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
The transatlantic origins of modern normative conceptions of democracy have become deeply buried as British and American political scientists alike have embraced the representative model of democracy as standard. Hence elections and voting are now generally regarded as critical elements in defin-ing a political democracy. This indirect or representative feature appears as a central point in C. B. McPherson's The Real World of Democracy: How to make a government responsive to the choices of those it was expected to cater to? The way was of course to put governmental power into the hands of men who were made subject to periodic elections at which there was a choice of candidates and parties. 7 It reappears in Dorothy Pickles' definition of democracy as a system of government that fills two essential require-ments: 113 The Role of Elections in American Democracy It must first be able to elicit as accurately as possible the opinions of as many people as possible on who should be their representatives. . . . This means, at a minimum, universal suffrage, political parties and the organization of free voting in uncorrupt elections at frequent intervals. Second, it must provide ways of ensuring that those chosen by the people do in fact do what the electorate wants them to do or that they can be replaced even between elections. 8 Similarly, J. Roland Pennock defines democracy in exclusively electoral terms: A democracy is rule by the people. . . . Rule means that public policies are deter-mined either by vote of the electorate or indirectly by officials freely elected at reasonably frequent intervals and by a process in which each voter who chooses to vote counts equally (one person, one vote) and in which a plurality is determina-tive.' It even appears as a central argument in the work of American political theorist Robert M.
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