How Do We Elect the President?

Understanding the Electoral College

By Cara Anaam

In the presidential election of 2000, Al Gore got over half a million more votes nationwide than did George Bush. How then did George Bush end up as president? Bush got five more votes in the Electoral College, a system of voting that is used only in elections for the president and vice president.

What is it?
The 12th Amendment to the United States Constitution outlines the process for electing the president of the United States. We call this process the Electoral College system. It is a method of indirect popular election.
On November 2, 2004, voters will cast their ballots in the presidential election. Their votes actually select a group of electors who pledge to vote for a specific candidate when the Electoral College meets in December. The "Electoral College" is the unofficial term coined in the 1800s for this group of citizens who cast the official votes that elect the president and vice president.

How does it work?
The presidential/vice-presidential pair who wins the popular vote in any given state (except for Maine and Nebraska) receives all of the state's Electoral College votes. In the other two states, the electoral votes are assigned in proportion to the popular vote.

In the end, the winner of the race is the candidate who receives a majority (270) of the 538 Electoral College votes. The results of the 2004 election won't be official until the president of the Senate counts the votes out loud at a special joint session of Congress held on January 6, 2005.

Find your state on the map showing how many electoral votes each state will have in the 2004 election. How many electoral votes does your state have? What state has the most? Which states have the least?

Why do we do it this way?
As they drafted a Constitution, the founders of our country had a difficult problem to solve in deciding how a president should be elected in a nation of 4,000,000 people spread up and down a thousand miles of the Atlantic seaboard. In 1776, there was no Internet, no television or radio networks, no newspapers that were read all over the country; communication between states and among people in a state took a long time. Travel was difficult; there was no system of interstate highways, no planes, no cars. To get from one place to another to visit or exchange ideas, they relied on horses, boats, or their own feet.

It is also true that our nation in the beginning was composed of thirteen large and small states, all jealous of their rights and powers and suspicious of any central, national government. The founders needed to find a way of giving each state some power in the election of a president, not just the larger ones. They rejected the idea that the president should be elected by popular vote because they feared that people would only know about candidates from their own states. This would give all the power to the larger states.

Is it the best system for today?
The system the founders designed has been used with modifications ever since. Today conditions have changed and people now have easy access to information about a range of candidates. The pros and cons of using the Electoral College system are still argued.

Those in favor of it argue:

• It contributes to the cohesiveness of the country by requiring that popular support for a presidential candidate be found throughout the entire country.
• It gives power to smaller states.
• It contributes to political stability by encouraging a two-party system.

Opponents argue that:

• It makes it possible to elect a president who doesn't get a popular majority.
• It creates a risk that an elector may not vote according to the will of the voters who elected him.
• It makes it very difficult for support for a third-party candidate to get recognized thus keeping out new ideas.

Cara Anaam is the co-editor of The Change Agent.

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