As a result of the extremely close 2000 US
presidential election (Bush vs. Gore) as well as ad nauseum media coverage of
election-related news, many Americans understand two things:
1. They do not directly
vote for a president
2. The candidate with the most popular votes might
not become president
The reason is this: Article II of the US Constitution decrees that each state will select a
number of electors equal to its total representation in the US House and
Senate. Following the general election, these electors meet within their states (never as a national body)
and choose the Presidential ticket that their state will support when it submits
its electoral votes to the President of the US Senate (the sitting US Vice
President), who officially counts
them. See the flow chart below.*
The key to a state's electoral influence is its representation in the US
House and US Senate. Only the first of these is based on population. The
designers of the Constitution included 2 representatives per state in a
powerful Senate body in order to keep larger, more populous states from
overwhelming the smaller ones, which would occur if there was only a single
legislative body with
membership based solely on population. With the same "protect the
little guy" goal in mind for
presidential elections, state electoral vote representation is also based
in-part on population and in-part on simply being a state.
See the chart below and note that less populous states can have far more
electors compared to their population than larger states. Simply put,
a vote by a citizen in Delaware or Rhode Island can have a greater
influence than that of a large state voter from Florida,
New York, or other populous states such as California and Ohio.
| Number of Electors per State (Examples) | ||||
| State | US House Members | US Senators | Total = No. of Electors | Electors per Million Citizens |
| Florida | 25 | 2 | 27 | 1.5 |
| New York | 29 | 2 | 31 | 1.6 |
| Delaware | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3.5 |
| Rhode Island | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3.7 |
Here's another really interesting aspect of the electoral college system. Apart
from 15th and
19th Amendment blocks
to voting rights discrimination
relative to blacks and women, it is ENTIRELY up to the states to determine
how its electors are chosen. The Constitution does NOT mandate that voting
by the people even take place! Constitutionally, a state legislature
can choose the electors for its state, which is
exactly what some states originally had in mind. As far as the
Constitution is concerned, electors could be selected by the state
legislature, by rolling a die, or by arm-wrestling! This is why
the US Supreme Court refused to intervene in Florida's decision not to allow
a recount in the 2000 election. Like it or not, it is not the federal
government's business how a state chooses its electors! And
because the Constitution gives this power to the states and is silent about
places like Puerto Rico and Guam, there are US citizens (residents of these
places) who cannot vote in presidential elections. A Constitutional
amendment gave the District of Columbia 3 electoral votes in 1961.
Almost every state awards all of its electoral votes to the winner of its
popular election.* This means that, theoretically, a candidate might win 49% of the vote in
each of 10 states yet receive zero electoral votes from those states. This
also shows how the final outcome can diverge substantially from a simple count of the
popular vote.
Here's another interesting aspect. A state cannot deliver its electoral
votes to a ticket where the presidential and vice-presidential candidates
are both inhabitants of their state ("inhabitants" is interpreted as "registered voters.") This explains Dick
Cheney's sudden "move" to Wyoming after registering to vote in
Texas and then being chosen as the running mate of George W. Bush (Governor
of Texas).
* Today, results are known via the mass media long
before the VP counts the votes. There is one variation on the overall
approach. The "Maine Method," used by Maine and Nebraska, leaves the
door open for distribution of a state's electoral votes across multiple
candidates. In this approach, electoral votes are determined by
congressional district, one per district, with the winner of the most
popular votes state-wide receiving the final two electoral votes of the
state.
Recommended Resources
| Best of Other Free Websites, Videos, etc. | |
| The US Constitution Online | US Constitution "official" page from The National Archives |
| Page with Map of 2004 State/Electors Map | National Archives page about the Electoral College |
| Books and Other Media | |||
| Excellent Book about the Entire US Constitution, including the Electoral System | Electoral College Issues and Alternatives | Amazon Kindle Book - Downloads to Kindle Reader | Bumper Sticker (if you agree with it!) |
| Other Sites of Potential Interest (content selected automatically) |
Test Your Knowledge
This test covers the information in this article. Read each question and decide in your head what the answer is. Click the empty cell in the Answers column to see the correct answer.
| The Electoral College System | Which Article of the US Constitution outlines the process for selection of a US President? | Article II |
| What part of the Constitution guarantees each US citizen's right to vote for a President? | No part of the Constitution does this | |
| Which two states do not award all of their electoral votes to the presidential ticket with the most popular votes within their states? | Maine and Nebraska. They award one per congressional district then give the statewide popular vote winner the two remaining votes. |
Click Here to go to the "Test Your Knowledge" page covering all articles included in this week's theme on DailyUSHistory.com.
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