Three of my daughters attend university in Paris, and one of them brought her French
boyfriend home this summer. During his visit, he asked me how I felt about “not having a direct
vote.” While I felt I had a general understanding of the Electoral College, I found I was unable to
adequately explain the process to him. He followed that question up with: “Why do you have a
popular vote if it doesn’t count,” and “How does the Electoral College work?”
Again, my answers were completely unsatisfactory, and I realized that I didn’t really know
exactly how the president of the United States is elected. My only consolation was the belief
that I’m most likely not alone. Clement then went on to rather articulately explain the French
election process, which is not exactly straightforward either. I was a little embarrassed by my
ignorance, and I promised myself that I would learn how exactly the president of the United
States is elected.
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College in the Constitution as a compromise
between election of the president by a vote in Congress and election of the president by a
popular vote of qualified citizens.
Each state has two senators and therefore receives two electoral votes. Additionally, each
state receives an electoral vote for each congressional district (think of it as a vote for each
congressman in the House of Representatives).
California has by far the most electoral votes with 55. Other states with considerable sway
include Texas with 38, Florida and New York with 29 each, Illinois and Pennsylvania with 20
each, and Ohio with 18. Fifteen states have between three and five electoral votes, while another 22 states have between six and 11. Maine has four electoral votes.
Here’s the important part: Our votes do count. The popular vote determines how the electoral votes will be cast. For example, in the 2008 election, Barack Obama won the popular vote in Maine over John McCain. So as a direct result of the popular vote, Maine’s four electoral votes went to Obama.
Forty-eight of the 50 states and the District of Columbia award electoral votes on a winner- take-all basis. For example, all 55 of California’s electoral votes go to the winner of the state election, even if the margin of victory is only 50.1 percent to 49.9 percent.
Maine and Nebraska allow proportional voting, as opposed to the winner-take-all basis. In this
process, one electoral vote is awarded to the winner of each congressional district and the two
senatorial (at-large) votes go to the candidate with the most total votes in the state. A split vote has happened only once. In 2008, Nebraska split its votes, four for McCain and one for Obama.
A candidate must be awarded more than 50 percent of the electoral votes to win the election. There are currently 538 electoral votes, thus 270 is the required amount to win. If no candidate
receives more than 50 percent, the House of Representatives will select the president from among the top three candidates, by a vote in which each state and the District of Columbia casts one vote.
The controversy occurs when a candidate wins one or two large states by a slim margin, but loses by a large majority in several smaller and medium-size states. The “winner-take-all basis” of awarding electoral votes allows a candidate to receive the majority of the electoral votes, while actually losing the popular vote. Many proposals have been made to change this system, but for whatever reasons, none has succeeded.
Several times the winner of the popular vote has lost the election because the other candidate
received more than 50 percent of the electoral votes. It happened in the 1876 election between
Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden, in the 1888 election between Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland, and most recently in the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
The most blatant example of the system failing (depending on your perspective, of course)
was in the 1824 election between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams. Jackson won
the popular vote and the electoral vote but lost the election. Jackson received 99 electoral
votes, but because the electoral votes were spread among four candidates — Adams received
84, William Crawford received 41, and Henry Clay received 37 — Jackson did not receive more than 50 percent of the total electoral votes required to win the election.
Therefore, the election was decided by the House of Representatives. John Quincy Adams won the election with 13 states voting for him against seven states for Jackson and four for Crawford.
Here’s an interesting side note: George Washington is the only president to receive 100 percent of the electoral votes, and he did it in both the 1788 and 1792 elections.
It’s not a perfect system, and we may not have a “direct vote,” but the next time someone tells you that your vote doesn’t count, you can say with authority, “It most certainly does!”
Jeff Bergeron lives in Old Town.
“Here’s the important part: Our votes do count. The popular vote determines how the electoral votes will be cast.”
This is not mandated. The method of selecting of electors is Constitutionally left up to the individual states. There is nothing in the Constitution that would prevent a state from mandating that all its electoral votes be awarded to one political party regardless of the result of the popular vote.
I have never figured out why we still have the electoral college. Basically you are saying to people that your vote doesn’t matter because your guy isn’t the most popular. Awarding all the electoral votes to one canadiate is wasting all the votes for the other guy. Also that is why we have Presidential canadiates only campaigning in select states. Romney is not going to go anywhere near California, just like Obama isn’t going to spend much time in Texas. They have nothing to gain because they are going to lose those states. Its such an out dated way of voting. Just like voting on Tuesday. Why have we not for the love of God moved elections to Saturday!!
Just what is the meaning of an election when so many votes may be swayed by massive propaganda and misinformation campaigns funded by self-interested groups and billionaires? When political campaigns are defined more by cashflows than voter activism do we still have a democracy? The Electoral College would appear to be the least of our problems.
The Founding Fathers feared that ordinary citizens lacked the smarts to cast votes for president and vice president directly. In light of comments by certain Republican presidential candidates in recent months–but not Mitt Romney–and by certain Republican candidates for the US Senate in recent days, can you not appreciate the Founders’ wisdom here? I can.
Presidential elections don’t have to be this way.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who
receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of ‘battleground’ states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in
more than 3/4ths of the states, like Maine, that now are just ‘spectators’ and ignored after the conventions.
National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don’t matter to their
candidate.
And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state are wasted and don’t matter to candidates. Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 “wasted” votes for Bush in 2004. 8 small western states, with less than a third of
California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
With National Popular Vote, elections wouldn’t be about winning states. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. Every vote, everywhere would be counted equally for, and directly assist, the candidate for whom it was cast.
Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states. The political reality would be that when every vote is equal, the campaign must be run in every part of the country.
When the bill is enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral
votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every
demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes):
AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans
believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes – 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
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A survey of Maine voters showed 77% overall support for a national popular vote for President.
By political affiliation, support for a national popular vote was 85% among Democrats, 70% among Republicans, and 73% among others.
By gender, support for a national popular vote was 82% among women and 71% among men.
By age, support for a national popular vote was 79% among 18-29 year olds, 67% among 30-45 year olds, 78% among 46-65 year olds, and 82% for those older than 65.
By congressional district, support for a national popular vote was 78% in the First congressional district and 76% in the Second district.
By race, support for a national popular vote was 79% among whites (representing 94% of respondents) and 56% among others (representing 6% of respondents).
In a follow-up question presenting a three-way choice among various methods of awarding Maine’s electoral votes,
71% favored a national popular vote;
21% favored Maine’s current system of awarding its electoral votes by congressional district; and 8% favored the statewide winner-take-all system (i.e., awarding all of Maine’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes statewide).
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