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Understanding the Electoral College
27/10/2004 09:41 - (SA)
Washington - Americans vote on November 2 for the next president. While they are casting ballots for President George Bush, Democratic Senator John Kerry or another candidate, they are really voting for the 538 people who make up the Electoral College. Criticism and confusion sometimes surround this unheralded institution.
Here are some questions and answers about the Electoral College:
Q. How does it work?
A. There are 538 electoral votes divided among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Each state has one elector for each of its members in Congress - one for each House representative (determined by a state's population) and one for each senator (each state has two). A candidate needs a majority of the electoral votes - 270 - to win the presidency.
Most states award all their electoral votes to the candidate who has won the popular vote in the state. The electors then cast two ballots each, one for president and one for vice president. Those votes are sent to Congress, where they are certified.
Q. So the American voter doesn't actually vote for the presidential candidates?
A. Technically, that's correct. Voters do not cast ballots for the presidential candidates, but for the people who will elect the candidates.
On Election Day, states hold direct, state-wide elections to choose their electors under a winner-take-all system. The exceptions are Maine and Nebraska, which dole out their votes proportionally.
Residents of another state, Colorado, vote on November 2 on a referendum to divide the state's nine electoral votes proportionally among presidential candidates. If it passes, it would go into effect immediately, potentially complicating the election if the results are close.
Another tidbit: According to the Constitution, electors must vote for at least one candidate from a state other than their own. This is why political parties usually select presidential and vice presidential candidates from different states.
If candidates on one ticket were from the same state, that state's electors could not vote for the ticket.
Just before he was nominated as the Republican candidate for vice president in 2000, Dick Cheney owned a home in Texas, the home state of Bush. Before the election, Cheney changed his legal residence to Wyoming, his birth state, which he had represented in Congress.
Q. Do electors have to vote for the candidate chosen by their state?
A. Not all of them. The Constitution does not require electors to vote a specific way, but 29 states and the District of Columbia do ask their electors to vote according to their party's slate. Out of 21 000 electors in the nation's history, only 10 have been "faithless electors," who switch their votes from their party and their state's popular vote.
This has never had any effect on the outcome of an election. The most recent switch was in 2000 when an elector from the District of Columbia abstained rather than vote for Al Gore to protest the District's lack of representation in Congress.
A Republican elector in West Virginia already has said he may not vote for Bush if the president wins the state.
Five states have penalties for "faithless electors" ranging from fines of up to $1 000 to convictions of fourth-degree felonies. No "faithless elector" has ever been penalised, however.
Q. When is the president technically elected?
A. Each state's electors will get together in their own state on December 13. The entire Electoral College never convenes as one body. Each state collects votes and sends them to Congress, which will count and certify the votes on January 6. Two weeks later, on January 20, the president is inaugurated.
Q. What if there's a tie?
A. If two presidential candidates receive the same number of electoral votes, the House will decide who becomes president and the Senate decides the vice president. That's assuming none of the state votes are contested, as some were in 2000.
Q. How many times has a president won the electoral vote (and the presidency) without winning the popular vote?
A. Four, most recently in 2000, when a close election in Florida caused recounts and eventually the intervention of the US Supreme Court, which ruled in favour of George W Bush.
He won with 271 electoral votes although Democrat Gore won the overall popular vote. (Bush had 50 455 156 votes, or 47%, to Gore's 50 992 335, or 48%.) The other elections were in 1824, 1876 and 1888.
Q. Did the 2000 Census affect the distribution of electoral votes?
A. Yes. One of the primary functions of the Census is to reallocate congressional representation - which means the number of electoral votes per state can change. Some states lose population while others gain, causing a slight shift in electoral votes. The most any state gained as a result of the 2000 Census was two votes and the most lost was two votes as well. Winners include Florida and Texas, which gained two votes each. New York and Pennsylvania each lost two.
Q. Why is it called a "college"?
A. The founding fathers loved all things classical, including the idea of democracy. They envisioned a body of well-informed, geographically diverse people - the electors - choosing the leader of the country based on input from the entire population. The Roman Catholic Church uses a similar method to choose the Pope through its College of Cardinals. The word "college" comes from the Latin "collegium" for a gathering of people equally sharing duties and knowledge.
Q. Why does the United States still use the Electoral College?
A. Simply put, it's too difficult to get any other option approved. The Electoral College could only be replaced through an amendment to the Constitution. But that takes a lot of work and compromise. The bill would have to be approved by both chambers of Congress and then sent to all state legislatures for action. Thirty-eight states would then have to approve the change for the amendment to take effect.
That's not to say lawmakers haven't tried. In the past 200 years, Congress has seen more than 700 proposals to change the system - making such an amendment more sought after than any other.
- AP
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