Electoral+College

Electoral College Fact Sheet Information From: [archives.gov] [howstuffworks.com] [Wikipedia.com] I. History/ Facts • Administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). • Established as a compromise, by our founding fathers, in Article II, Section I, Clause II, between election of the president by congress and election by popular vote. • 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. • Citizens vote for electors who in turn vote for the president. • There have been 538 total electors since 1964. • To become President one must get at least 270 electoral votes. If no candidate wins the majority, the 12th Amendment allows for a Presidential election by the House of Representatives. -this has happened twice: 1801 election-Thomas Jefferson and!825 election- John Quincy Adams. • A vote for the candidates for President and Vice-President named on the ballot is a vote for the electors..." This is the case for 48 states -- it's known as the ** "winner-take-all system." ** The other system, known as the **"district system,"** is observed in both Maine and Nebraska. In these states, two electors' votes are made based on the candidate who received the most votes statewide  II. The Electors  • How are electors selected:   · Political Parties nominate electors at their state party conventions or by a vote of the party's central committee in each state.  · They are selected to recognize their service and dedication to their political party.  · The voters in each state then choose the electors on the day of the general election.  · Must be appointed by the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.  · The number of electors for each state is based upon the number of members in the House of Representatives, plus two for the state's senators. · He or she cannot be a Representative or Senator · He or she cannot be a high-ranking U.S. official in a position of "trust or profit" · He or she cannot be someone who has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the U.S. • Certificates of Ascertainment Names of the electors chosen by the voters and the number of votes received. Names of all other candidates for elector and the number of votes received. • Certificates of Vote: Documents that contain elector's votes for President and Vice President. Must contain: All persons who received electoral votes for President and number of electors who voted for each person. All persons who received electoral votes for Vice President and number of electors who voted for each person. Those who object to the Electoral College system and favor a direct popular election of the president generally do so on four grounds: • the possibility of electing a minority president • the risk of so-called "faithless" Electors, • the possible role of the Electoral College in depressing voter turnout, and • its failure to accurately reflect the national popular will. Opponents of the Electoral College are disturbed by //the possibility of electing a minority president// (one without the absolute majority of popular votes). Nor is this concern entirely unfounded since there are **__three ways in which that could happen. One way in which a minority president could be elected is__** if the country were so deeply divided politically that three or more presidential candidates split the electoral votes among them such that no one obtained the necessary majority. This occurred, as noted above, in 1824 and was unsuccessfully attempted in 1948 and again in 1968. Should that happen today, there are two possible resolutions: either one candidate could throw his electoral votes to the support of another (before the meeting of the Electors) or else, absent an absolute majority in the Electoral College, the U.S. House of Representatives would select the president in accordance with the 12th Amendment. Either way, though, the person taking office would not have obtained the absolute majority of the popular vote. Yet it is unclear how a direct election of the president could resolve such a deep national conflict without introducing a presidential run-off election — a procedure which would add substantially to the time, cost, and effort already devoted to selecting a president and which might well deepen the political divisions while trying to resolve them. __A **second way in which a minority president could take office is**__ if, as in 1888, one candidate's popular support were heavily concentrated in a few States while the other candidate maintained a slim popular lead in.enough States to win the needed majority of the Electoral College. While the country has occasionally come close to this sort of outcome, the question here is whether the distribution of a candidate's popular support should be taken into account alongside the relative size of it. This issue was mentioned above and is discussed at greater length below. __A **third way of electing a minority president is**__ if a third party or candidate, however small, drew enough votes from the top two that no one received over 50% of the national popular total. Far from being unusual, this sort of thing has, in fact, happened 15 times including (in this century) Wilson in both 1912 and 1916, Truman in 1948, Kennedy in 1960, and Nixon in 1968. The only remarkable thing about those outcomes is that few people noticed and even fewer cared. Nor would a direct election have changed those outcomes without a run-off requiring over 50% of the popular vote (an idea which not even proponents of a direct election seem to advocate). Opponents of the Electoral College system also point to //the risk of so-called "faithless" Electors.// **__A "faithless Elector" is one who is pledged to vote for his parly's candidate for president but nevertheless votes of another candidate.__** There have __been 7 **such Electors in this century**__ and as recently as 1988 when a Democrat Elector in the State of West Virginia cast his votes for Lloyd Bensen for president and Michael Dukakis for vice president instead of the other way around. **__Faithless Electors have never changed the outcome of an election,__** though, simply because most often their purpose is to make a statement rather than make a difference. Still, **__if the prospect of a faithless Elector is so fearsome as to warrant a Constitutional amendment, then it is possible to solve the problem without abolishing the Electoral College__** merely by eliminating the individual Electors in favor of a purely mathematical process Opponents of the Electoral College are further concerned about //its possible role in depressing voter turnout.// **__Their argument is__** that, since each State is entitled to the same number of electoral votes regardless of its voter turnout, there is no incentive in the States to encourage voter participation. Indeed, there may even be an incentive to discourage participation (and they often cite the South here) so as to enable a minority of citizens to decide the electoral vote for the whole State. While this argument has a certain surface plausibility, it fails to account for the fact that presidential elections do not occur in a vacuum. States also conduct other elections (for U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, State Governors, State legislators, and a host of local officials) in which these same incentives and disincentives are likely to operate, if at all, with an even greater force. It is hard to imagine what counter-incentive would be created by eliminating the Electoral College. Finally, some opponents of the Electoral College point out, quite correctly, //its failure to accurately reflect the national popular will// in at least **__two respects. First, the distribution of Electoral votes in the College tends to over- represent people in rural States. __ ** This is because the number of Electors for each State is determined by the **number of** members it has in the House (which more or less reflects the State's population size) plus the number of -. in the Senate (which is always two regardless of the State's population). __A **second way in »hich the Electoral i fails to accurately reflect the national popular will stems primarily from the winner-take-all mechanism**__ In response to these arguments, proponents of the Electoral College point out that is was never intended to reflect the national popular will. As for the first issue, that the Electoral College over-represents rural populations, proponents respond that the United State Senate - with two seats per State regardless of its population - over-represents rural populations far more dramatically. But since there have been no serious proposals to abolish the United States Senate on these grounds, why should such an argument be used to abolish the lesser case of the Electoral College? Because the presidency represents the whole country? But so, as an institution, does the United States Senate. Proponents of the Electoral College system normally defend it on the philosophical grounds that it: • contributes to the cohcsivcness of the country by requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected president • enhances the status of minority interests, • contributes to the political stability of the nation by encouraging a two-party system, and • maintains a federal system of government and representation. Recognizing the strong regional interests and loyalties which have played so great a role in American history, proponents argue that the Electoral College system **//__contributes to the cohesiveness of the country be requiring a distribution of popular support to he elected president,__//** without such a mechanism, they point out, president would be selected either through the domination of one populous region over the others or through the domination of large metropolitan areas over the rural ones. Indeed, it is principally because of the Electoral College that presidential nominees are inclined to select vice presidential running mates from a region other than their own. For as things stand now, no one region contains the absolute majority (270) of electoral votes required to elect a president. Thus, there is an incentive for presidential candidates to pull together coalitions of States and regions rather than to exacerbate regional differences. This unifying mechanism does not, however, come without a small price. And the price is that **iri __very close popular elections, il is possible that the candidate who wins a slight majority of popular votes mav not be the one elected president - depending__** __(as **in 1888)**__ on whether his popularity is concentrated in a few States or whether it is more evenly distributed across the States. Proponents thus believe that the practical value of requiring a distribution of popular support outweighs whatever sentimental value may attach to obtaining a bare majority of popular support. Indeed, they point out that the Electoral College system is designed to work in a rational series of defaults: if, in the first instance, a candidate receives a substantial majority of the popular vote, then that candidate is virtually certain to win enough electoral votes to be elected president; in the event that the popular vote is extremely close, then the election defaults to that candidate with the best distribution of popular votes (as evidenced by obtaining the absolute majority of electoral votes); in the event the country is so divided that no one obtains an absolute majority ' of electoral votes, then the choice of president defaults to the States in the U.S. House of Representatives. **__One way or another, then, the \vinning candidate must demonstrate both a sufficient popular support to govern as well as a sufficient distribution of that support to govern.__** Proponents also point out that, far from diminishing minority interests by depressing voter participation, the Electoral College actually **//__enhances the status of minority groups.__//** This is so because the voters of even small minorities in a State may make the difference between winning all of that State's electoral votes or none of that State's electoral votes. And since ethnic minority groups in the United States happen to concentrate in those State with the most electoral votes, they assume an importance to presidential candidates well out of proportion to their number. **__The same principle applies to other special interest groups such as labor unions, farmers, environmentalists, and so forth.__** It is because of this "leverage effect" that the presidency, as an institution, tends to be more sensitive to ethnic minority and other special interest groups than does the Congress as an institution. Changing to a direct election of the president would therefore actually damage minority interests since their votes would be overwhelmed by a national **popular** majority. Proponents further argue that the Electoral College **//__contributes to the political stability of the nation__//** //__by **encouraging a**__// **//__ two party system. __//** There can be no doubt that the Electoral College has encouraged and helps to maintain a two party system in the United States. This is true simply because it is extremely difficult for a new or minor party to win enough popular votes in enough States to have a chance of winning the presidency. Even if they won enough electoral votes to force the decision into the U.S. House of Representatives, they would still have to have a majority of over half the State delegations in order to elect their candidate - and in that case, they would hardly be considered a minor party. In addition to protecting the presidency from impassioned but transitory third party movements, the practical effect of the Electoral College is to virtually force third party movements into one of the two major political parties. Conversely, the major parties have every incentive to absorb minor party movements in their continual attempt to win popular majorities in the States. In this process of assimilation, third party movements are obliged to compromise their more radical views if they hope to attain any of their more generally acceptable objectives. Thus we end up with two large, pragmatic political parties which tend to the center of public opinion rather than dozens of smaller political parlies catering to divergent and sometimes extremist views. In other words, such a system forces political coalitions to occur within the political parties rather than within the government. **__A direct popular election of the president would likely have the opposite effect. For in a direct popular election, there would be every incentive for a multitude of minor__** **__parties to form in an attempt to prevent whatever popular majority might be necessary to elect a president. The surviving candidates would thus be drawn to the regionalist or extremist views represented by these parties in hopes of winning the run-off election.__** The result of a direct popular election for president, then, **__would likely be frayed and unstable political system characterized by a multitude of political parties and by more radical changes in policies from one administration to the next. The Electoral College system, in contrast, encourages political parties to coalesce divergent interests into two sets of coherent alternatives.__** Such an organization of social conflict and political debate contributes to the political stability of the nation. Finally, its proponents argue quite correctly that the Electoral College //maintains a federal system of government and representation.// Their reasoning is that in a formal federal structure, important political powers are reserved to the component States. In the United States, for example, the House of Representatives was designed to represent the States according to the size of their population. The States are even responsible for drawing the district lines for their House seats. The Senate was designed to represent each State equally regardless of its population. And the Electoral College was designed to represent each State's choice for the presidency (with the number of each State's electoral votes being the number of its Senators plus the number of its Representatives). **__To abolish the Electoral College in favor of a nationwide popular election for president would strike at the very heart of the federal structure laid out in our Constitution and would lead to the nationalization of our central government - to the detriment of the States.__**
 * Arguments Against the Electoral College [uselectionatlas.org] **
 * __ whereby the presidential candidate who wins the most popular votes in the State wins all the Electoral votes of that State. __** One effect of this mechanism is to make it extremely difficult for third party or independent candidates ever to make much of a showing in the Electoral College. If, for example, a third party or independent candidate were to win the support of even as many as 25% of the voters nationwide, he might still end up with no Electoral College votes at all unless he won a plurality of votes in at least one State. And even if he managed to win a few States, his support elsewhere would not be reflected. By thus failing to accurately reflect the national popular will, the argument goes, the Electoral College reinforces a two party system, discourages third party or independent candidates, and thereby tends to restrict choices available to the electorate.
 * Arguments for the Electoral College **