The Electoral College---Help??
922672
The electoral college works by giving each state a certain number of votes for president.  Big states like California and New York have more votes than states with fewer people, like Iowa and Montana.\n\nYou need to look at the numbers of votes each state has.  Then look at which states Bush and Kerry won.  When you add up the votes from the different states, Bush had more total votes than Kerry.\n\nTo answer your questions, you need to figure out three different combinations of states that would have still made Bush won, and three different combinations of states that would have made Kerry win.
194914
From the title, it sounds like the topic assumes the conclusion that the presidential election is an example of true democracy -- unless you put a question mark at the end of the title, in which case the paper would be answering the question of whether the presidential election is an example of true democracy.\n\nIn any event, you might want to try defining some terms as part of your approach.  What is a "democracy"?  Then, what do you mean to add by saying "true" democracy?  (Are you focusing more on technicalities or on spirit?)  We know that American presidential elections involve the weird electoral college procedure, and that it's possible (though very rare) for the winner to win even though another candidate received slightly more votes from regular voters.  Maybe that's a pretty minor thing, though.\n\nAlso, in America, lots of people don't bother voting.  Does that diminish democracy?  They are not prevented from voting, they just choose not to.  So no one ever actually gets elected by a majority of the people, but rather only by a majority of people who decided to vote.  That's people's choice, of course, but does it change the idea of "democracy" at all?
690430
If the Electoral College fails to award a majority to a candidate, the President is elected by the Senate and the Vice President is elected by the House of Representatives.  If that happens, then theoretically ANYBODY can get to either position, whether they were candidates or not.\n\nThis hasn't happened - yet. So far, the Electoral College has always come up with a winner, though not always the same winner as the voters had in mind.
332320
Supposedly the citizens of the USA, but we really only vote for the electoral college. The Electors are under no obligation to vote the way the people voted. That's democracy for you.
709192
Well, with our current system, your vote really doesn't count much. Especially in Presidential elections. The Electoral College is a huge disaster for MANY reasons, and has got to got. Evidence: George Bush is president.
300526
This is because each state is allotted a certain number of "electoral votes."  It is based on the population of that state.  For example, NY State has 31 electoral votes.  After the population goes to vote and it's decided who the majority is, the electoral voters (those 31 people who represent our votes) go and cast our ballots.  \n\nNow it's a simple majority rules.  Say that the majority (let's say 60%) voted for Kerry and 40% voted for Bush. None of that 40% goes towards the electoral votes.  It's all Kerry.\n\nNow they say that the electoral college (electoral votes) was first created because back in the late 18th Century, people weren't educated very well.  They wanted some sort of buffer, so they created the electoral vote, which was essentially where the voters could vote AGAINST the population's vote, if they felt it necessary.  Just so you know, they can still do this.  \n\nIt creates a huge problem today.  Al Gore actually won the populous vote, but not the electoral vote...pretty unbelievable that the president that was voted in by a majority wasn't actually placed into office, huh?\n\nThe problems that it causes is that presidential candidates focus their attention in a non-pleasing/non-ethical way.  Instead of spreading themselves around, they specifically target those countries with high electoral votes.  Of course you can argue that no matter what they are going to target bigger states, but I think that eliminating the formalness of it all will encourage candidates to venture off to states not normally visited.\n\nAs you can tell, I'm a big supporter of eliminating the electoral vote.  I think that most people are wise enough to vote in a sufficient way; after all, at least they have a high school background (most anyways).  It's outdated for our times and I for one think it should be removed.
163629
People are elected to the Electoral College by popular vote in that state. The candidate who wins the most votes in a state wins all of the electoral college vote. However, in Maine and Nebraska, the candidate who wins the most votes in a Congressional District has a person elected to the electoral college for that district. Very occasionally, a candidate who wins the most votes in the US is defeated by a candidate with more electoral college votes as happened in 2000. The last occurrence of this before 2000 was in the 19th century.\n\nOccasionally, there is an example of a faithless voter in the electoral college where a person votes for another person other than the candidate he was elected to represent. This has never decided an election.\n\nThere has also been an example where the Electoral College couldn't make a decision and the House of Representatives elected the President. In 1824, no candidate received a majority of votes and the Congress selected John Quincy Adams even though Andrew Jackson received the most votes. \n\nI have attached some sources. There are plenty of books and journal articles on this topic as well.
705765
270 electoral votes are needed.  Please check out the link below...
182744
Are u asking how the American president is elected?  Then the answer is by Electoral vote.  Every state has an electoral college, and they are alloted so many votes depending on population.\n\nI want my 10 points!
1151002
The ballot is the card you fill out to vote for individual offices.  I think you are asking about the electoral college, which is a group of people selected to cast votes for the president based upon the way the population of a state voted.  However, not all states are required to distribute ballots in the college based on the way the state voted.  Essentially the college was first created because we couldn't let farmers and immigrants who could not read and write truly select who wins an election.  Still around for the same reason today...too many stupid people get a choice.
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.)
952352
First, there would need to be a Constitutional Amendment passes to change the way the President and Vice President is selected. This usually takes a couple years to do. It could be done faster, but it would need to be approved by 3/4 of the states, and a lot of them are smaller and benefit from the electoral system more than they would from a popular vote. So you need to convince them that it is needed.\n\nAfter that, Congress would then need to work out all the various details on doing a national popular election. As it is now, that is left to the States. There are very few laws on the federal level dealing with elections. And after this, I'm sure there would be several states fighting these laws in court for a few years, claiming the new laws were unconstitutional because they infringe on the State's rights.\n\nWe have less than two years before the next election. I don't think that is enough time to get all this done. A better idea (and quicker) is to convince your state legislators to change the way they distribute their votes. Most states (48 of them) give all electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote in the state. Get your state to change it to distribute it more proportional to the popular vote (unless you already live in one of the two states that do something like this).
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.
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.
352742
it is by the number of electoral college votes.  these are based on the populations of the states the larger the state the larger the number (ie cali and florida are big montana is low) it is not by majority vote or popular vote as some call it.
33929
The Electoral College was established by the founding fathers as a compromise between election of the president by Congress and election by popular vote. The people of the United States vote for the electors who then vote for the President.\n\nThis practice came into being because the founding fathers of the USA did not think the common man had enough knowledge of the candidates to have his (women could not vote back then) vote count.\n\nSo now, when we as Americans are casting our votes for the presidential candidates, we are actually casting our votes for electors, who will then cast their votes for the candidates. \n\nWhen all the electoral votes are counted, the candidate with the most votes wins. In most cases, the candidate who wins the popular vote also wins in the Electoral College. However, this has not always been the case.\n\nPresidential candidates can win the popular vote (the individual vote of each person in the country), and lose the election because they did not win the electoral vote.
209490
Since the Electoral College is specifially provided for in the U.S. Constitution, if you don't like it your lawful choices are:\n\n1) propose and campaign for an amendment to the Constitution (2/3 vote in each house of Congress + majority vote in 3/4 of the state legislatures)\n\n2) whine\n\nNote that your alternative of having some sort of nationwide referendum (if I've read you correctly) is not one of the options.\n\n(Incidentally, I don't think you have a ghost of a chance of changing it anytime soon.  Too many of us believe in the FEDERAL system and don't want everything decided by a few big population centers.)\n\nAlmost forgot to answer the first question -- yes, the American people WERE allowed to vote for the Electoral College system, at least as much as for anything else in the Constitution, THROUGH their representatives (in each state) who voted to ratify the Constitution.  (That's called a representative --or, if I dare say it, 'republican' form of government, and it's the one we've had for over 200 years.)