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.
Whether from National Popular Vote advocates or others, there are plenty of complaints about the Electoral College. Yet three of the most common are also the easiest to answer, at least in part, because each applies even more to Congress. Whether these or other complaints are valid at all is yet another question.
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Tweet The LA Times editorial board often prints anti-Electoral College columns, so yesterday’s piece along these lines is not surprising. Yesterday, however, one LA Times writer attempted to utilize James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, to back up this position. He wrote: ———– “Just don’t try making sense of the electoral college. Here’s...
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Tweet Surely Governor Bobby Jindal hopes the answer to that question is “no.” Such a scenario is at odds with the reputation that he strives to maintain as a solid conservative. Unfortunately for him, the Louisiana legislature may not cooperate. Many of its members seem intent on eliminating the Electoral College—an institution designed to...
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Tweet Rhode Island used to be known for its independence and spunk. It was the first American colony to renounce its allegiance to the British Crown. It refused to send delegates the Constitutional Convention and (stubborn to the end!) did not ratify the U.S. Constitution until after George Washington had already been elected and...
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Tweet 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...
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Tweet 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,...
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Tweet 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,...
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Tweet 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”...
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Tweet 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...
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Tweet 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...
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Tweet 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...
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Tweet 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....
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