Could someone explain the Electoral College to me?
913110
The Constitution mandates that the President and Vice President be chosen by Electors (members of the Electoral College). Only the Electoral college vote is used determine who becomes President. There is actually no national popular vote as far as the Constitution is concerned. See Article II and the 12th Amendment. \n\nThe Electors are chosen by the citizens of the states, according to laws established by the states. So, each state determines the formula for how the popular state vote is converted to an electoral vote, and then directs the state's Electors to vote that way.\n\nMost states allocate Electoral votes all-or-nothing, based on which candidate gets the highest number of votes in the state. So, if a candidate gets 51% of the popular votes in a state, that candidate gets 100% of the Electoral votes for that state.\n\nThe problem with the Electoral college is two-fold. First, it results in situations where a person loses the national popular vote, but because of the way the formula is applied ends up getting a majority of Electoral votes.\n\nThe other problem is that the all-or-nothing system effectively locks us into a two-party system, since a candidate must get the majority of votes in a state before ANY of the Electoral votes count. So, in a three-way race, someone could easily get 2/3 of the national popular vote, yet still fall below the threshold in every single state and thus end up with NO electoral votes at all.
1039857
There is a reason for it to exist.  The Electoral College was designed to make sure that there is a clearcut winner in the Presidential election to avoid the problems that could arise if the transition between administrations was not peaceful, as has been observed in other countries.  It also doesn't cut the small states out of the equation for selecting a President, for, due to the fact that each state's electoral vote is equal to its number of Senators and Representatives in Congress, the smaller states have a larger percentage of the Electoral College total than they do of the overall population (e.g. Wyoming's population is roughly 1/100 that of California, but in the Electoral College Wyoming gets 3 votes to California's 56 or so).  It is also not a "secret society" as almost every state has a law that the electors to the College are bound to vote for the person getting the highest percentage of the popular vote in the state (as each party nominates its own electors for each election, it's usually the case that those people will vote for the candidate of that party).\n\nAnd, given that it is part of the Constitution, and that that can only be changed by an amendment that would have to be ratified by 3/4 of the states, the Electoral College will always be with us, because there are at least 13 states that are intelligent enough to see that they don't want to give any more power to California.
673007
There are 100 Senators,(2 from each state), and 435 members of the House of Representatives.  The Representatives are determined by population and can change state by state after each Census taken every 10 years at the end of each Decade in the year that ends with Zero.  The number of Senators is set in the original constitution, however the number of members of the House was set by law at 435 in the early 1900's which was determined to be a manageable number.\n\nThe Electors of the Electoral College are determined by the amount of members of both houses each state has for a total of 535 and 3 for the District of Columbia making the total 538 and requiring a majority of 270 Electoral Votes to win the Presidency.  The District of Columbia gets no representation in Congress however they do get 3 votes in the Electoral College for the purpose of electing our President.
13212
The Electoral College is a group of electors who vote for the president.  The group members for each state are all the state's US House and Senate members.  There are a total of 538 members in the Electoral College.  All electors from a state must vote for the majority, although it wasn't always this way.\n\nThe popular vote is simply the measure of how people voted in the entire United States.  This does not choose the President, the Electoral College does.\n\nHope this makes sense!  Use the information that you need.
762728
It was put in place so that smaller states would have a voice in government. It is working as designed.  It was and is a brilliant idea to handle a complex problem. The distribution of electoral votes is based on the same formula as the distribution of seats in the Congress and Senate. The United States is a Republic and not a Democracy.
812994
Two reasons:\n\n1) The electoral vote is only used for President and Vice President. The U.S. Congress and your state and local offices are elected by the popular vote.\n\n2) The electoral votes from your state is determined by the popular vote in your state.
32779
The Electoral College is a controversial mechanism of presidential elections that was created by the framers of the U.S. Constitution as a compromise for the presidential election process. 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, a system described in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution.
124688
This is a good subject I would love to see some debate on.  My first thought is we should elimnate electoral vote and go with the majority vote. But that would mean the east and west coast would pretty much decide who/what gets elected.  With the elctoral vote every state has a say.  Id love to see some answers on this question.
357107
Mispelled dear,; however, All political leaders are bound by  Democracy which is a philosophy, a system of government of which the supreme power is vested in the people, who freely elect representatives, and the doctrine of majority rule. The USA, a republic of which The Founding Fathers assumed the electors (Senate and representatives) would use discretion and not be bound by popular vote, thus the Electoral College, a formality that was debated in 2000 to abolish, but ultimately elect the president and vice president of the USA.
929885
People elect the electoral college who elects the president
877283
There has never been an exact tie in the Electoral College. To win, you must get a majority of all votes (curently 270 of the 538 Electors). The last time a candidate failed to do so was in 1824 with John Quincy Adams, who, because of the fragmented politics of the time, got only 84 of the 261 electoral votes. The election was then refered to the House of Representatives. Each state was allowed one vote, and Adams was elected over Andrew Jackson. The only time it has ever been even close to a tie was in 1876 when Rutherford Hayes beat Samuel Tilden 185 to 184.\n\nIn response to the two above answers, there is an even number of electors, 538, and the Senate chooses the Vice President in the event of a tie, not the president
262515
The elctoral college was to assist when we did not have the ability to count every vote.  The electoral college would take the majority of votes for their state and vote for that paticular canidate.\n\nIt also prevents heavily populated states from controlling the election by forcing each electoral vote to count.  What has happened is states with the most electoral votes become key areas with the most visits by the canidates.  How often have presidential canidates vistied Florida, California, Ohio vs Alaska, South Dakota, Utah?\n\nEven more important, the United States is not a democracy, it is a republic.  With a republic officials are supposed to take their direction from us instead of each of our votes being counted.\n\nDon't like it?  Vote them out of office.  Not just Bush Bashers or Clinton Bashers but all of them!  Look how long some folks have been in the Senate or Congress!  If they are not doing what you want vote them out.  Why in the world would any politician listen to us whine about something but not use our authority to get them out of office.
880826
The Electoral College system is a winner-take-all BY STATE. Each state's electoral votes are determined independently of the other states.\n\nAs others have pointed out, Gore won the popular vote in the country as a whole, but lost the Electoral vote.\n\nThe Electoral vote came down to Florida's votes (if you discount Florida, neither side had enough electoral votes to win). Florida was determined for Bush.\n\nThis is why the Electoral College is such a horrible system; the person that more people actually want as president can loose. \n\nSince each state is determined independently, it's easier to steal an election.\n\nRepublicans couldn't have prevented enough Democrats -- in the country as a whole -- from voting to have stolen the race, if the popular vote decided things, but they were able to prevent enough Democrats in Florida from voting to steal that state, and that's all they needed to do.\n\n(I have opposed the EC as long as I've known of its existence. People who argued with me about it would always end by saying that it would prevent a demagogue from taking power. I've long wanted to call each of them up and ask, "So, how's that working out for you?" since what it did was enable a demagogue to take power.)
526640
First off if you vote, at least that is a step in the right direction. Second, The Electoral College and the Popular votes are always off. I agree with you that this is not fair. Our voices are not heard, we are put in a group of Electoral votes and individuals don't count. For the presidency. \nWith all the technology you would think if we could  vote on the computers, then maybe just maybe the computer would not screw up the counts, it would be faster, and well no one would be counting the "hanging chads". \nGood Question\n\nAdded 4:10 a.m. Found this for you....The Electoral College was established by the framers of the Constitution as a compromise between the election of the President by popular vote and the election of the President by the Congress.  The framers were concerned that members of the public would not be able to stay informed about candidates from other regions. They were also worried about the arrangements that might be made between the state’s Representatives behind closed doors.  While the concern over deals struck between our elected Representatives might continue to be a concern in modern times, the ability of the public to be informed about the candidates is not...http://alllaw.com/articles/constitutional/article1.asp\n\nand getting it changed back is a lot of work....It will be interesting to see the public’s reaction if the results of the Electoral College don’t match up with the results of the popular vote in this Presidential election.  One strong argument for keeping the Electoral College is that it forces Presidential candidates to campaign in states with small populations.  If the Presidential election were decided by the popular vote, candidates might focus their campaigns only on highly populated areas, leaving states with smaller populations with little say in who is elected President.  It is hard to say whether this argument is strong enough to overcome any sense of unfairness voters may feel if the candidate who wins the popular vote loses the Electoral College election.  Because the Electoral College process is part of our Constitution, it can only be changed by a Constitutional amendment – not an easy thing to do....http://alllaw.com/articles/constitutional/article1.asp\n\n When, in 1824, Andrew Jackson won the popular vote but lost the presidency to John Quincy Adams, Jackson lost no time in complaining that he believed the election was stolen. He complained early, he complained often; even after he won the presidency the next time around he was still complaining...http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/11.19C.mundy.gore.htm\n\nI was so interrested in your question I did some more research and went to a wonderful site. AskALibrarian@oclc.org. They sent me those links. \n\nhttp://www.votescount.com/books/elecoll.htm\n\nhttp://www.uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/INFORMATION/electcollege_history.php\n\nhttp://www.fec.gov/pages/ecmenu2.htm
961975
the electoral college is very fair.   It gives each state equal voting representation.  If we didn't have the electoral college all elections would be decided by NY, TX, and CA.
445822
I think the one we have is just fine.  I mean, come on, does any sane person really think that we today are smarter that the men who founded this country? No. In fact, I think we are infinitely more uneducated than they were.  If you study their reason for using the electoral college, they make perfect sense - a lot more sense than any argument that people make for converting to a popular vote system today.
926839
The parties (Democrat and Republican) vote for their candidate they want to represent them!  The electoral college has a certain number of people according to the size of their state.  It adds up to 536 and the candidate needs 270 votes to win.  They try to get to get the higher populated states such as Florida, California, Ohio, and Texas so they win.  I believe the voter's votes are factored in also.