One reasons for America’s success is the Electoral College, the mostly behind-the-scenes and often misunderstood system for electing the President of the United States.
The Electoral College is, to be exact, the group of representatives (Electors) chosen in each state to cast the official ballots (electoral votes) for President.
Each state gets as many Electors as it has members of the U.S. House and Senate—the same voice in choosing the president as it has in Congress. You can use the drop down States menu above to see how many Electors each state has (the number in parenthesis).
Before the presidential election, each political party nominates Electors who promise that they will cast electoral votes for that party’s presidential candidate. When citizens vote in a presidential election, we are really voting for our candidate’s Electors—if our candidate wins in our state, those Electors will represent us in the Electoral College and vote for our candidate. Read the posts below to learn more about the Electoral College and why it turns out to work so well.
In presidential elections, the big state of Alaska is a small state. It has only three electoral votes. In a country of 311 million people, it has a mere 722,000. Worse, it can be hard for presidential candidates to get to Alaska, given its distance from the 48 contiguous states. Alaska needs every advantage...
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Alaska’s legislature has been in session for less than two weeks, but apparently some state Senators were already itching to jump into action on the National Popular Vote issue. The Senate Finance committee heard the matter in a hearing this past Wednesday—about a week after the legislature convened. The legislation has been held, at...
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Twice recently, The Heritage Foundation hosted events to discuss the National Popular Vote proposal–a plan that would eliminate the effects of the Electoral College while side-stepping the difficult process of constitutional amendment. I was honored to participate in the first panel, and even more honored that it was hosted by Edwin Meese III, the...
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Warning: satire ahead! (For the basics on what the National Popular Vote anti-Electoral College scheme is all about, check out this post.) -TE A new poll shows that Americans overwhelmingly prefer to scrap the World Series. A shocking 68% of Americans instead believe that Major League Baseball should rely upon “total runs scored” during...
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Readers of this blog will remember that the National Popular Vote campaign is striving to effectively eliminate the Electoral College by asking states to allocate their electors to the winner of the national popular vote, rather than the winner of state popular votes. Now, it looks like NPV’s long road to changing the Electoral...
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Pennsylvania Republicans want to change the state’s method of awarding presidential electors: Instead of a winner-take-all system, they propose to award electors based on congressional district. http://bit.ly/qp1z6S One of the great strengths of the current system is the great discretion given to state legislatures in picking a manner of elector allocation. If Pennsylvania legislators...
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A common argument made in favor of NPV (or any national direct election plan) is that it keeps votes from being “wasted.” Editorialists such as this one argue, for example, “Did you know that the 1.2 million votes John McCain received in our state in 2008 did not matter? Those 1.2 million voters might...
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Or So National Popular Vote Wants You to Believe By: Tara Ross & Trent England Even as the rest of the country focuses on the economy, the inventor of the scratch-off lottery ticket continues his push to all but eliminate the Electoral College. John Koza’s National Popular Vote effort is making unfortunate progress. Just...
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The National Popular Vote interstate compact would wipe away state lines and turn the entire nation into one giant “single-member district” for presidential elections. This, according to computer scientist and NPV inventor John Koza, will make “every voter equal.” That is the title of Koza’s self-published book and the lead slogan employed in support...
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Traveling around the country defending federalism and the Electoral College, I have heard an amazing array of different–sometimes contradictory–claims made by National Popular Vote (NPV) advocates. Some of this is reasonable, since different NPV backers have different complaints about the current system and very different explanations of how NPV would work. Other contradictions appear...
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The silent battle over presidential election procedures wages on, and Massachusetts has officially fallen. Last week Gov. Deval Patrick signed legislation entering the state into National Popular Vote’s interstate compact, bringing NPV’s total electoral votes to 72 (of the needed 270). Yet Save Our States is seeing to it that the “silent” aspect of...
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According to National Popular Vote, it don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that swing. Voters outside of “swing states,” NPV’s materials claim, are “spectators to the presidential election” and are “effectively disenfranchised.” A closer look reveals that NPV’s claims come from a superficial understanding of political campaigns that does not survive under...
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