electoral votes?

Question

i need a little bit of information about electoral votes, regarding voting and democracy...thanx

Answer 1

Long one... Each State has an electoral college, that is an appointed group of people that decides who the state will vote for as President. Most States have a winner take all mandate that says whomever gets the majority vote gets all the electoral votes. Some divide the votes so that they are more even. Electoral collegians are not required by law in most states to vote as the states vote, but I know of no one recently going against the grain.

On rare occasions this does not work where the popular vote swings differently than the EC, for example in the 2000 election one party received the majority popular vote by about 1/2 million but the other won the electoral college vote.

If you are wondering how this can happen let me explain.
imagine three states with roughly the same population. Party A gets the majority vote in two state but just over 50%
Party B gets 98% of the vote in the 3rd state. Party A gets the electoral college votes in 2 states and wins whereas Party B wins the popular vote. Party A takes the election.

ndgbill, please read my post and you will see that I said I know of no one recently going against the grain. By this I of course meant that they have not gone against the grain of the other collegians in a state. I have done my best to leave political opinions out of this as the asker did not ask us for them.

Answer 2

Electoral votes are cast from the Electoral College which is made up by Electors.

Historically this was mainly for two reasons: So a King George III loyalist crony would be blocked by the College of Electors in case the you-know-what hit the fan during an election then the electors would go to the nuclear option and elect the next guy in line, which fortunately hasn't happened.
The other reason, and more importantly, to help ratify the Constitution in the first place.

If you dig deep with a little algebra, the Electoral College is noticable skewed toward smaller states having more weight behind chosing the President then more-populous states do. This edge helped the lesser-populated colonies in the 1780's take the plunge and ratify the Constituition, (along with the second house of Congress, the Senate).

the Math: Each state has "X + 2" Electoral Votes (just go with me, please) Where "X" is the relative population to the (the same way the number of member of the House of representatives are picked). This number "X", well if you sum all them up for the whole country would equal 435 (Congress put a cap on it, it used to be per 60,000 people and at 300 million we'd then have 5,000 Representatives, again small states prevail with that too).

For instance, 5 small states of 4 electoral votes each would add up to one large of 20 electoral votes. Or put it this way, California has 37 million people and 55 electoral votes and Rhode Island has 1 million people and 4 electoral votes. The ratio of people of CA to RI is 37:1, but the ratio of Electoral votes is 13.75:1. So a voter has roughly three times the relative popular vote in RI then in CA.

Some people in large states say this is unfair BUT that's what the smaller states ratified when they became states so tough! Furthermore there is a method to amend the Constitution, of which last but not least included three-fourths of the states having to pass that amendment in their respective state legislatures, suffice it to say, it'll never, ever, ever happen, because 39 states benefit hugely from this and would seriously be, to use that tiresome phrase, "cutting their nose off, despite their face."

It makes me laugh when I heard Hillary mentioning that the Electoral College was unfair and the Presidental election should be based on a popular vote only, because she should know that there's no way an amendment would ever have a chance to ever pass the state legislatures much less the Senate.

For all the Bush-haters out there: First take a good long look at Al Gore, he's a total wreck. If you don't agree with me fine, but the guy could've won the election if he won his HOME state. Besides how easily to you guys forget that in California they don't even count the military vote at all if the total number of military votes in the state are less than the difference for the state's Presidential election which throws out the arguement of the popular vote anyhow. Furthermore, the media called the state while the voting booths were still open in the Florida pan-handle. There's a legitimate 10 to 15 item list that I won't bother with in favor of Bush in the 2000 election. Let's just agree the election left a lot to be cleaned up (which is the state responsibility not George Bush's).

The right man was elected, it was Al Gore's election to lose anyway, huffing and hawing into the microphone during the debates. He's a total loser.

Answer 3

Wht do people come here to get infomation that is not only immediately available through a google search but most important ,one does not get garbage information that some replies here testify to.

Here as a good review of the Electoral College with all the information you were too shy to ask about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College

In a very profound sense the US is not a democracy in that it is more of what is called a Republic.

In fact among the world's democracies,the US is the least democratic (as measured by a number of parameters) .

The Founding Fathers in fact had nothing but CONTEMPT for "WE ,THE PEOPLE" and made sure that the Constitution greatly limited the power and authority of WE,THE PEOPLE.

Bcause the FFs had little use for WE THE EOPLE,they made absolutely sure that the President was NOT elected by WE THE PEOPLE but rather by a group of APPOINTED (in the early days) ELITIST group in each state.

AMERICANS ARE NO EVEN TRUSTED/ALLOWED TO ELECT THEIR OWN LEADER !!!!!!!!!!!

In terms of garbage information,A poster FRONT stated that the Electoral College never went against the "grain" of the voting of WE THE PEOPLE but of course that is WRONG and in recent history the Electoral College elected BUSH as President eventhough it was GORE who had the most votes.

This is simply a democratic obscenity .No REAL democracy would toterate such disgusting anti-democratic situation like you Americans lap up

The entire US Constitution is riddled wth these ANTI-DEMOCRATIC obscenities.Originally the most powerful part of the US Congress (i.e. The Senate) was an APPOINTED body ,not an elected one .This was of course changed by an amendment.

In absolutely no other demoracy can a political leader override by a veto any normal legislation passed by the legislative branch of goverment .All that is required is that legislation be passed by the majority of elected representatives , i.e. 51% but in the anti-democratic US and because of the President's veto power,60 % (majority required to override the veto )is needed to pass all legislation .

This Preidential power makes the US closer to a dictatorship then to a democracy for as we see RIGHT now in the USA Congress,the party that was given the majority by WE THE PEOPLE ,cannot get anything done because of this friggin Presidential Veto which is an anathama to the 51% democratic maxim.

WE THE PEOPLE cannot get what in any other democracy
we would get and that passage of legislation based upon a simple 51%.

You Americans really need to have another REVOLUTION and get yourselves a REAL democracy where WE THE PEOLE has REAL meaning.

Answer 4

It goes back to the time when our Constitution was ratified in the 1780s. There were many disagreements between the delegates of different states, so many compromises were struck.

One problem was that smaller states were afraid the big states would not respect their rights, they would gang up to vote against them. The Electoral College was invented as a compromise to give smaller states proportionately more power.

Each state has an electoral vote for each of its senators and congressmen. The smallest state has 3 electoral votes because it has two senators and at least one congressman. In those days, that was a lot, because the biggest state only had a few million people.

Over the years, there have been many proposals to do away with the electoral college and just elect presidents by the popular vote. Every one of these proposals has been defeated by small states, who have the most to lose. It would take a constitutional amendment, which is not easy to do even if everyone -does- agree!

But in all this time there have only been two presidents who won the electoral vote count despite not winning the popular vote. They were Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 and GW Bush in 2000, and both turned out not to be very popular presidents.

(Actually, Bush was not really legitimately elected. The US Supreme Court stopped a recount of votes. Months later a for-the-record recount showed that Gore would have won. There were also numerous 'irregularities' in the polling in Florida, all of which benefitted the Republicans, because the state's Secretary of State, the person whose job it was to certify the election as fair and legitimate, was also Bush's campaign manager in the state!)

Answer 5

Front242 gave you the clearest and most correct answer...

The electoral college votes are NOT always aligned with the will of the majority...

If the electoral college votes were TRULY a reflection of the majority, then the Democrats would win every election... because Democrats hold a strong majority in ALL major metropolitan areas...

So the way our system is set up spreads the voting power more evenly across the state, rather than keeping centralized control in the major cities.

However - in some cases - like in 2000 and 2004, the electoral college became a gerrymandering system where the votes were more likely a reflection of which party owns the most land in square miles... a proprietary vote instead of a popular vote... which is not very democratic at all.

Answer 6

The votes of the Electoral Collage, which is the assembly that chooses the President & Vice President in the USA.
Each state gets a number of electoral votes equal to the number of congressmen & senators each state has (minimum 3). The electors are chosen by the govenor of each state. Most states have laws in place to require the elector to vote similarly to the popular vote of that state, but in no state is it a criminal offence to vote differently.
The original purpose of the Collage was to be a debating club for choosing the president, in which political passions would be cast aside for open debate of the candidates merits.
Practically it was also designed to remove the unwashed massed from another means of directly influencing the political process. (The Federal Gov't was designed as a Republic, not a Democracy)

Answer 7

It isn't just population. It is based upon the number of congressional representatives a state has, which usually coincides with population, but in fact, it gives more power to small-population states like Wyoming, i.e., each electoral vote in Wyoming represents fewer popular votes than say the electoral vote in larger-population states. As an institution, the electoral college system is antiquated and patently unfair. It needs to be abolished.

Answer 8

Each state has a number of electors equal to the number of representatives plus senators. Each political party chooses who it wants to be the electors (usually large contributors or party workers) and when you vote for president you actually are voting for the electors. They all meet late in December and vote to make it official. Technically based on how the vote is distributed it is possible for the president with fewer votes to actually win by having more electors.
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Answer 9

this is the voting system used in the USA. Each state and the district of Columbia is assigned a number of electoral votes...Each state votes, and the winner of the popular vote gets the states electoral votes. It takes 270 to win the Presidential election.

Answer 10

Here's a quick rundown:

Every state in the Union gets a certain amount of electoral votes. The higher the population of the state, the more electoral votes it has. During the national general election for President, they tabulate the votes county by county and whomever amassed the most votes in that state "wins" that state. What this means is when it comes time to place the Electoral College votes, those Elector's (One for EVERY Electoral vote) pledge to vote for a certain candidate to truly and accurately reflect the votes of the people. For example: If Mitt Romney won the state of California, but NO OTHER states in the National race, he would receive 55 votes from the Electoral College, since California has 55 electoral votes attributed to it.

The purpose of this is to simplify the democratic voting process in a country of 300 million people. Hope this helps!