Voting Representation: The Electoral College Use these links to navigate the main sections of the Voting: Representation section. Links for navigating the entire voting section, as well as the rest of the Law, Diversity and the Vote site are at the bottom of the page. Introduction | How We Choose Our Candidates | Voting Systems | The Electoral College Do We Have Enough Representation? YOU Vote! What It Is and How It Works The Electoral College is an indirect system of voting: the citizens choose the electors who in turn select the president. This indirect voting system was developed as a compromise by those who gathered in 1787 to draft our constitution. Today, electing our president remains one of the most widely debated topics. But even though the presidential election process has been the target of more reforms than any other feature in American government, today’s Electoral College is very similar to the system developed over 200 years ago. Electors have the opportunity to cast their state’s electoral votes for president. Because the slate of electors wins as a unit, all of the state’s electoral votes are awarded to only one candidate. Candidates who do not win the popular vote do not receive any electoral votes. The winning slate of electors meets on the Monday following the second Wednesday in December to cast two ballots, one for president and one for vice-president. The results are sent to Congress where they are counted in the Senate and House of Representatives on January 6. The candidates who receive the majority, or at least 270 or the total 538 votes in the Electoral College, are declared the president-elect and vice-president-elect. If no candidate receives a majority of the Electoral College votes, the election is thrown into the House and Senate for resolution in a “contingent election.” The president is chosen by the House, with each of the 50 states having one vote, and the vice-present is selected by the Senate, with each of the 100 senators having a single vote. What Do the Critics Say? A call to replace the Electoral College comes at least once every four years during presidential elections. Critics contend that it will ultimately misfire and elect a president who has lost the popular vote. On two occasions, this has actually happened and it has been narrowly avoided during several other close elections. Another possibility is that the Electoral College system will throw the election into the House where each state would have just one vote. This situation would mean residents of larger states, such as California, New York, and Texas, would be vastly underrepresented in the election. There is also the prospect of electors casting their votes for a candidate other than the one they are pledged to support. Known as the “faithless elector problem,” this situation has occurred only a few times and has never been crucial to an election’s outcome, although the possibility remains. What Do Its Supporters Say? Those who favor keeping the Electoral College system believe indirect voting corrects the natural imbalances that exist in a large nation of diverse people with different interests, all of whom must be represented. Supporters also point out that the present method of electing a president reinforces the two-party system and requires presidents to build national coalitions rather than focusing on regional bases of support. What Are Its Practical Effects? To the critics of our system, the “winner-takes-all” rule that applies in 48 of the states means that citizens who cast their votes for a losing candidate seem to have little voice in government. When a state use the “winner-take-all” rule, whoever wins the majority of the votes gets all the electoral votes in a presidential election. For example, when George Bush won Alabama in 1992 with 47.9 percent of the popular vote, he was able to claim all nine of its electoral votes. Over 90 percent of the African-American voters and 30 percent of the white voters in Alabama voted for Clinton. Their choices were not reflected when the state cast all of its electoral votes for Bush. Also, a strong showing by a third-party candidate could keep the leading vote-getter from winning a majority of electoral votes. This possibility is becoming more likely with the growing public dissatisfaction with the two major parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. According to some political analysts, the failure of any candidate to win a majority of Electoral College votes would probably precipitate a constitutional crisis. Such an election would be thrown into the House and Senate where it would be decided by mechanisms of great complexity and questionable fairness. In calling for reform, some political scientists recommend amending the U.S. Constitution’s 12th Amendment so that such an election would be settled by a nationwide runoff between the two top vote-getters. Thus, an Electoral College tie would most likely lead to a direct election. The candidate with the most popular votes in the runoff election would become president. Controversial Elections The 12th Amendment, reforming the rules for contingency elections, was passed in 1804 after the contentious presidential election of 1800. Since then, there have been three contingent elections when the candidate won the most popular votes but lost the electoral vote. 1800 - When the electoral votes were counted, this was the score: Thomas Jefferson 73 Aaron Burr 73 incumbent President John Adams 65 Charles Cotesworth Pinkney 63 John Jay 1 It was up to the House to choose the president. Each of the 16 states having one vote and nine votes needed to win. It took seven days of continuous session and 30 ballots before Jefferson was elected president and Burr as runner-up became vice-president. 1824 - Andrew Jackson won the popular vote, but because no one won the majority of the electoral votes, the election went to the House. With William Crawford and Henry Clay also being considered, the House elected John Quincy Adams president. 1876 - With the nation barely recovered from the Civil War, during the voting for presidential candidates Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden, four states reported two conflicting sets of electoral votes, throwing the election to the House and the Senate to resolve. Congress appointed an electoral commission to judge the conflicting state returns. Hayes won the election, even though Tilden had won the popular vote by more than half a million votes. 1888 - Incumbent Grover Cleveland won the popular election by over 95,000 votes, but Benjamin Harrison was elected president when he won the majority of electoral votes. >>Youth Citizenship >>Voter Registration >>Representation >>Campaign Reform Conversation | *Voting* | Activities | Resources Online Conversations | Law, Diversity, and the Vote