High School-United States Government

Special Interest Groups

Major Idea

A conscientious citizen understands the candidates’ positions on the various issues.

There are many organizations whose major purpose is to educate the voter. The

League of Women Voters is such an organization. Their sponsorship of various public forums and political debates at state and national levels is well known.

In addition, there are many pressure groups which exert influence. Examples include the National Rifle Association, the American Medical Association, and the National Education Association. These groups subsidize the dissemination of information slanted for or against certain pieces of legislation. These pressure groups, both pro and con, galvanize into action with the aim of persuading the legislators to support their point of view.

The concerned citizen will endeavor to examine the arguments of both the advocates and opponents of each issue and then identify the position of the candidates regarding these issues. At the same time, the voter will bear in mind that the position taken and the material published by organized supporters or opponents on any question are necessarily going to be one-sided, and that both sides of each question should be studied so that an intelligent decision can be made.

Lobbyists operate on both the national and state levels. In Texas, lobbyists must register with the Texas Ethics Commission. This enables the legislators and the public to know what groups are seeking to influence the votes of the legislators. Lobbyists can exceed reasonable limits in their efforts to gain favorable consideration of their special interests thus producing a rather dangerous situation.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

1. explain the purpose, legitimacy and activities of lobbyists in our democratic system of government

2. identify better-known lobbying groups and their activities

3. identify potential problems resulting from the activities of pressure groups and the need for regulation of their efforts

4. demonstrate an understanding of the function of the lobbyist

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills

US History Social Studies Since Reconstruction 18A; 25A, B, D; Government 3A, B;

15D; 16A, B, C; 17A, B, C; 21C; 22A, B, D.

U.S. Government - Page 1


Materials Needed

Attachment 1: I Was a Teenage Lobbyist

Teaching Strategies

1. Introduce the role of lobbyists by reading “I Was a Teenage Lobbyist,” a description of the activities of a lobbyist (Attachment 1). Have students answer questions regarding the purpose, legitimacy and activities of lobbyists. The following points should be made: a. Lobbyists are people who attempt to persuade legislators to vote for or against certain issues.

b. Anyone can be a lobbyist.

c. Lobbyists need facts, not opinions.

2. Ask students to find an example of a lobbying activity in the newspaper and or on the Internet. They should cut out the article and include it with a one-page summary describing the basic details.

3. Role play the following activity in which students divide into three groups representing (Handbook of Strategies, Strategy No. 2): a. a legislative committee considering a bill b. lobbyists in support of a bill c. lobbyists against a bill

“Lobbyists” will represent arguments before the “committee” which will then make a decision based on the student presentations.

4. Invite a professional lobbyist to speak to the class to explain this type of activity and to answer questions.

5. Assign students to attend a city council meeting or a legislative committee session to observe the efforts of lobbyists and then report impressions to the class.

6. Collect various brochures and publications of better known lobbyists for classroom evaluation.

7. Write for the legislator’s view on the importance and impact of the work of the lobbyists.



8. Students can play the role of lobbyists by working to achieve the passage of certain bills and/or the defeat of others through participation in a model legislature.

Evaluation

Evaluate students’ participation in role playing.

Evaluate students’ responses to this question: “What are the most common factors that influence people not to vote?”


Attachment 1

I Was a Teenage LobbyIsT

by Michael R. Hagopian

Mr. Hagopian served as co-chairman of young Rhode Islanders of Handgun safety. In 1977, he became the youngest registered lobbyist at the age of 16. He graduated from smithfield High school in 1979 and went on to syracuse

University in new york from which he graduated in 1983. He is presently enrolled in a law program and is also a candidate in the master’s program in business administration at bridgeport University in Massachusetts.

It is important to note also that the average citizen can act as a lobbyist on an issue of particular concern by requesting the opportunity to testify before a legislative committee to present relevant material or simply to explain one’s ideas or concerns. a good example of this is the achievement of two young Rhode Islanders whose interest in gun control legislation led to their having a considerable impact on the development of a gun control bill which was acted upon by the Rhode Island general assembly in the 1979 session. a description of the activities of these teen activists follows.

In the summer of 1977, several high school students got together to form an interest group because we were all very much aware of the problems with handguns. a bill was introduced into the general assembly with the strong support of the governor that sparked us to organize ourselves and work toward a goal.

We decided to have our organization, “young Rhode Islanders of Handgun safety,” dissolve 24 hours after the passage of the bill so we could claim we were only interested in the one bill. Main concerns for the summer of 1977 were to increase our membership and raise money. It is almost impossible for any interest group to function without money or enough support. We got the support we needed, but it became necessary to charge dues for our income; therefore, our budget was very low.

In preparation for the upcoming general assembly session, we wrote many gun control groups across the county in an effort to gain support. We got the support and information. Handgun alert of Providence, Rhode Island, and the

Coalition to ban Handguns of Washington, D.C.,were two groups that helped us greatly throughout our endeavor. an established group can help a new one get started, and one way is by providing information and facts about how similar laws work in other states.

at the start of the 1978 session, we sent representatives to all the legislative committee hearings to testify. In order to testify, any group needs facts, not opinions, or else the assemblymen will never listen to you. The hospitals and the police department provided us with some of the facts we needed but we felt it important to know if the people of Rhode

Island were behind us. so our organization ran a telephone poll of 500 people throughout the state. With the help of a noted Rhode Island College professor, an expert in the field of polling, we were able to produce a very accurate and scientific poll. The results were most favorable to our cause, and in February, Rhode Island Handgun safety

Month, we held a press conference to release our results to the press and a few politicians. It is very effective to show assemblymen that you are representing the people, and not lobbying for selfish reasons. our survey showed that the people were behind us, but our opponents tried to counteract this and use a radio poll to try and show that people were against the bill. The radio poll was run by a local station which asked listeners to call in and express their views in the form of a vote. It was later stated that their phone-in survey could not be compared to our scientific poll, as was later stated by both our expert as well as the radio station that ran the poll.

In order to follow up our survey, we continued attending committee meetings and talking to senators and representatives who were both directly and indirectly involved with the bill. The better we got to know the assembly men, the more responsive they were to us. by talking to the key people in the state house, we were able to change the minds of colleagues. another big help to us was that we always knew where the bill was and how it was progressing. We kept a close watch on it and thus were able to act on it quickly, as was sometimes necessary.

The first year the bill was introduced, it passed the senate but failed the House, which set up a subcommittee to study the bill over the summer. This meant the summer was going to be an important stage of the bill’s “life.” but by keeping in close contact with the subcommittee, we were able to persuade them with the support of our partners in the Coalition


Attachment 1 of Handgun safety.

In the next session, the bill passed committee and passed the House with no problem, and then proceeded to the senate special Legislation Committee. The bill passed this committee with a lot of controversy, and was placed on the senate agenda for the last day the legislature was in session. I remember this day too well. I was co-chairman of the lobby at the time along with my good friend Paul, and we got out of school at one o’clock to sit on the senate floor. I arrived only to find that the senate had recessed for an indefinite amount of time. The session reconvened after an hour and we then had to wait for our bill to come up on the calendar; we didn’t know when it was due and neither did anyone else.

The session was supposed to end at a certain time and five minutes before the time was up, they extended the time one hour. There were several attempts to kill it, which made us even more nervous. as the clock was nearing 9:00 p.m., the senate took one final vote; our bill passed!

This victory could not have been accomplished without the help and cooperation of all the “adult” groups in the coalition, and the sheer devotion of our group. success in lobbying is brought about by hard work, devotion and factual information. a member of the legislature only wants to hear facts, because he sometimes depends on interest groups to provide him with information that he doesn’t have time to research. If an interest group can be trusted, it will receive better results from legislators.

nobody is going to influence an official merely by sitting at home and writing letters all day. you have to be a gogetter in order to influence people. one doesn’t have to be a pest; just let the leaders know who you are and make a good appearance every time you see them. This doesn’t mean writing letters is bad; it can be very effective but it must supplement personal appearances.

Source: The Rhode Island Book, League of Women Voters


Local Government

Major Idea

Local governments are the most visible of all governments to the average citizen and offer the best opportunity to influence governmental decision-making.

Paradoxically, fewer people vote in local than in national elections. Local governments provide such familiar services as public schools, police and fire protection, water and waste disposal systems, and traffic control. As agents of the state, they collect local taxes and some license fees, register voters and conduct elections, and they prosecute offenders against state laws.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

1. identify the governing body of their locality; i.e. City Council

2. list the powers of city and county governments

3. list the qualifications of a candidate

4. explain why candidates seek political office


Government 9I; 11A; 15A, D; 16A, C; 22D.

Vocabulary declaration of candidacy financial disclosure mass meeting political party chair qualifications filing deadline general elections petitions primary elections special elections

Teaching Strategies

1. Discuss the role of the local governing body, focusing on the role of a candidate seeking to win an election. In Texas, candidates may run for office with party affiliation, as an independent, or as a write-in candidate. During election years, require students to campaign for the candidate of their choice in the upcoming election.

2. Begin the unit by posing the question “Who governs our locality?” or “Who determines the amount of taxes you pay?” Discuss any other powers of the body.


Local Government

Cities and counties have similar basic powers. Cities, however, are much less restricted in their exercise of these powers. Some important local powers are: a. to enact and enforce ordinances b. to provide for health, safety, welfare, comfort and convenience of the inhabitants (the police power), and to promote commerce and industry in the jurisdiction c. to levy taxes permitted to local governments and to appropriate local funds for local purposes d. to borrow money and to pledge the credit of the jurisdiction within prescribed limits or according to prescribed procedures e. to take private property for public use with just compensation (eminent domain)

3. Follow up with the question “What are some reasons why a person might wish to run for office?”

4. Open the class to a discussion about qualification and filing information for candidates.

The requirements for holding elective office in Texas vary depending on the specific office sought. There are, however, many general qualifications that a candidate must meet. The following are the general requirements for candidacy as listed in Section 141.001 of the Texas Election Code (if you have questions on qualifications for a specific office, visit the Texas Secretary of

State’s website at www.sos.state.tx.us or call 1.800.252.VOTE(8683).

To be eligible to be a candidate for, or elected or appointed to, a public elective office in this state, a person must:

(1) be a United States citizen;

(2) be 18 years of age or older on the first day of the term to be filled at the election or on the date of appointment, as applicable;

(3) have not been determined totally mentally incapacitated or partially mentally incapacitated without the right to vote by a final judgment of a court;

(4) have not been finally convicted of a felony from which the person has not been pardoned or otherwise released from the resulting disabilities;

(5) have resided continuously in the state for 12 months and in the territory from which the office is elected for six months immediately preceding the following date;

(A) for a candidate whose name is to appear on a general primary election ballot, the date of the regular filing deadline for a candidate’s application for a place on the ballot;

(B) for an independent candidate, the date of the regular filing deadline for a candidate’s application for a place on the ballot;

(C) for a write-in candidate, the date of the election at which the candidate’s name is written in;


Local Government

(D) for a party nominee who is nominated by any method other than by primary election, the date the nomination is made; and

(E) for an appointee to an office, the date the appointment is made; and

(6) satisfy any other eligibility requirements prescribed by law for the office.

5. Discuss the various means of raising funds for campaigning. Some possibilities may include:

Party funds/donations

Roasts

Personal contributions

Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions

6. Discuss the various campaign strategies a candidate might use. Some possibilities include: a. passing out literature or bumper stickers b. designing/making your pamphlets c. writing editorials in newspapers d. displaying posters at political rallies e. airing television and radio commercials

f. writing letters to newspapers supporting/criticizing candidates g. wearing buttons h. using direct mail

i. websites (Internet)

j. using telephone banks k. walking neighborhoods door-to-door (walking precincts)

l. speaking at meetings of local, civic, political, or community groups

7. Instruct the class to follow the campaign of the local candidates. Some suggested activities include: a. Invite candidates to class--equal representation for all candidates.

b. Have students prepare questions in advance regarding candidates’ platforms.

c. Using newspaper articles, have students keep a scrapbook of candidates’ platform promises.

Evaluation

Administer a teacher-made test assessing an understanding of local government and the electoral process.


Campaign Literature, Bias

Major Idea

Since campaign literature is, by its very nature, meant to sway public opinion, it must be convincing. The purpose of this strategy is to study and compare literature of various political campaigns from both a historical and critical perspective.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

1. differentiate between facts and opinions expressed in campaign literature

2. analyze and describe the political views of candidates as they are reflected in their campaign literature

3. describe the events leading to or surrounding the issues of a particular political campaign

4. describe how the candidate’s platform may affect current issues


Government 3A, B; 11A, B; 12A, B, C, D; 16A, C, D; 17A, B, C; 21C; 22A, B, C, D.

Materials Needed

Campaign materials collected from: local political parties

Texas Democratic Party

Texas Republican Party

Democratic National Committee

Republican National Committee

Library of Congress--Records Division



Vocabulary coattails

Library of Congress issues mudslinging

Democratic National Committee Republican National Committee early voting amendment early voting ballot board candidate city council congressional election

U.S. Senate constitutional officer sheriff convention democracy editorial general special electoral college electorate

GOP incumbent landslide majority mass meeting officer of election partisan plurality nominate paper ballot platform politics political action committee (PAC) political contribution political party popular vote reapportionment registration republic returns slate statewide office lieutenant governor suffrage vote at-large ballot campaign caucus coalition

House of Representatives constitutional amendment clerk of court treasurer delegate to convention democratic elections primary electoral board election district eligibility grass roots independent lobbyist mass media polling place precinct registrar referendum

Republican running mate special interest groups governor attorney general ticket voting machine



Teaching Strategies

1. Using whatever election is being held during the current school year, whether it is a national, state or local election, gather campaign materials. Include taped radio advertisements, videotaped television advertisements and literature produced by the candidate’s election committee.

Divide students into groups of 4 or 5 and ask them to evaluate the materials for emphasis on the following: a. the candidates’ perception of the issues b. their stand on those issues c. their views on personal qualities and characteristics d. their past political record e. their efforts to refute the opinions of opponents

f. their political promises

Ask each group to present its findings to the class.

2. Distribute a list of journalistic/political terminology and copies of campaign literature.

Ask the class to discuss the terms and their use in political literature.

3. Divide the class into groups and assign each group the responsibility of conducting an investigative report on literature from a particular campaign.

Ask them to cover how facts are presented in the campaign material and the historical/political situation surrounding the campaign.

4. Ask students to write campaign literature based on current campaigns according to their perception of political candidates’ stands on current issues.

5. Start a current issues forum. Have students share resources and information once a week.

Evaluation

No formal evaluation


Voting in Texas

Major Idea

Voting is the basic way to participate in a democratic government. However, many people do not vote--sometimes because they don’t know the voting process.

In Texas, a person is qualified to vote if he or she is a citizen of the United States and a resident of the state. Voters must be 18 or older by the date of the election in which they wish to vote. Voters are required to register 30 days before the election.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

1. list qualifications for voting in Texas

2. identify the voter registration process in Texas

3. explain the pattern of elections in Texas--electing national, state and local officials

4. identify referendum and local option as used in Texas

5. explain the process used to conduct elections in Texas


Government 3A; 9H; 11A, B; 22A, B, C, D.

Materials Needed

Attachment 2: Sample Voter Registration Application*

Attachment 3: Sample Application for Early Voting by Mail Ballot

Attachment 4: Sample Application for a Place on the Ballot

Attachment 5: Crossword Puzzles and Solutions

* Voter Registration Applications may be obtained from your high school principal, your local county clerk, voter registrar, or the Elections Division of the Secretary of State’s office.


Voting in Texas

Vocabulary early voting ballot election calendar executive branch government

House of Representatives legislative branch president separation of power state government voting precinct compensation for expenses eligibility federal government governor judicial branch local voter registrar

Senate separate responsibilities supreme court

Teaching Strategies

1. Ask students how they plan to become involved in current campaigns in the area.

Begin this activity by posing the question “Who can tell me how someone in

Texas qualifies to vote?” The correct responses are: a. you must be a citizen of the U.S.

b. you must be a resident of the political subdivision on the day of the election c. you must be 18 years or older on the day of the election in which you wish to vote d. you must be registered to vote

2. Follow up with a discussion of the registration process in Texas (Attachment 2).

Points to cover include:

How to Register to Vote in Texas: a. Complete a post card application for voter registration and mail it postagefree, or present it in person, to the voter registrar in your county.

b. You may register to vote at any time, but your application must be postmarked or received by the voter registrar at least 30 days before an election in order for you to vote in that election.

c. You may register to vote if you are at least 17 years and 10 months of age on the date the registration application is submitted to the voter registrar, but you may not vote until you are 18 years of age.


Voting in Texas

Persons in the armed forces, or those working outside the U.S., may register by completing a Federal Post Card Application.

As long as you remain at the address on your voter registration card, you continue to be registered.

A voter does not register as a member of a political party or as an Independent, as some other states require.

3. Explain the schedule of elections, local, state and federal.

Many people think there is always an election in progress. This is because state elections are held in alternative years from the national elections. Sometimes primary elections are held to choose the candidates for the general election.

There are also other elections that may take place during the year. For example, city elections, school district elections, community college elections, water district elections, etc., are held on Uniform Election Dates.

When are the Elections?

There are two uniform election dates (dates that political subdivisions can hold elections by law) in Texas for political subdivisions, that occur in the months of

May and November (House Bill 57, during the 79th Regular Legislative Session eliminated the February and September Election dates). Specifically, those election dates are the second Saturday in May, and the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Additionally, statewide and federal elections are held in the months of March, April, and November of even-numbered years.

There are exceptions to these uniform election dates, and in some cases, the

Governor can call a special election. For instance, in the case of a vacancy in the state legislature or Congress, the Governor will call a Special Election. But generally, you can only participate in elections held during those months.

You will hear a lot about Primary, Runoff, and General Elections. These are the elections at which votes are cast for the offices of President, Governor, federal and statewide officials.

Primary Election: 1st Tuesday in March in even-numbered years. You vote in either the Democratic or Republican Primary and you would vote for federal

(U.S. Senate race as an example), state (State Senate, State Representative, as examples), and county officers (County Judge, County Clerk, etc.). Minor parties that have ballot access in Texas do not hold Primary Elections.

Runoff Elections: 2nd Tuesday in April following the primary election in evennumbered years. You can vote in only one primary, and if you vote in that primary, you are entitled to vote in that party’s runoff election. If you don’t vote in either primary, you can vote in the Primary Runoff election for whichever party you choose.


Voting in Texas

General Election: 1st Tuesday after the 1st Monday in November in evennumbered years. You would vote on federal, state, and county officers in this type of an election. For example: President, Governor, U.S. Senate, State

Senator, etc.

In odd-numbered years, Constitutional Amendment Elections are generally held on the November uniform election date. Please visit our website at www.

sos.state.tx.us for a complete listing of offices/propositions on the ballot.

4. Further explain how the referendum and local option are used in Texas.

Information should include:

Texans may also vote in a referendum election. Referenda elections are elections in which the legislature asks the voters how they feel about particular issues. These issues may be amendments to the Constitution, or a request to borrow money by issuing bonds--the state’s IOU’s. Referenda usually are held on general election days. Local option is another voting opportunity, when a city or county has to decide on issues such as allowing alcoholic beverages to be served in restaurants.

5. Discuss the process used to conduct elections in Texas and the role of election officials. Invite the local registrar or the County Clerk/Elections Administrator to speak on this topic. Points covered should include: a. conduct of elections b. elections officials

Conduct of Elections:

Elections are held at local precincts across the state from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.

Most precincts in the state have voting machines which help speed the vote counting.

Federal Post Card Applications are available to those in the armed services and persons working outside the U.S. These applications allow people to register and to cast early voting by mail ballots. Students living away from home, persons who expect to be away from home on business or vacation on election day, and individuals too ill to vote at their precincts or are 65 years or older may apply for an early voting by mail ballot. If a voter is eligible to vote early by mail, he or she may do so by requesting an application for a ballot by mail from the registrar’s office and returning the application in person or by mail (Attachment 3 ). The Secretary of State’s office will provide brochures upon request or you can print them from the web at www.sos.state.tx.us.

In addition, all registered voters may vote early by personal appearance up to

17 days before election day. To vote early by personal appearance, the voter votes in person at the main early voting polling place or at any duly designated early voting branch location during designated voting hours. Contact your


Voting in Texas local early voting clerk for a list of the places and hours of operation of early voting polling places. Conduct a mock election and voter registration drive.

Guidelines are listed under Student Mock Election component.

Election Officials:

Elections are run by the local authority or authorities who conduct the election in conjunction with the Elections Division of the Secretary of State’s office.

In most elections, the county clerk or city secretary serves as the authority conducting the election. Usually, this person also serves as the early voting clerk.

6. Discuss who is eligible to run for public office and the role political parties play in both the selection of candidates and the campaign.

7. Encourage students’ participation. Ask students to volunteer to work for a campaign currently in progress.

8. Invite the County Clerk or Elections Administrator to discuss his/her job and demonstrate the voting equipment (if used in your locality) or paper ballot.

Register those who are 18.

9. Invite elected officials to speak to the class about how they got elected.

10. Invite a member of the Texas Young Lawyers Association to give a talk on

“Rights and Responsibilities Now That You Are Eighteen.”

11. Supplement discussion with Attachment 5.

Evaluation

Evaluate students’ participation in class discussion.

Maintain a record of students’ participation in political campaigns.


Attachment 2

Voter registration application-english

Texas

Voter Registration Application

Prescribed by the Office of the Secretary of State VR17.08E.I2

For Official Use Only

Please complete sections by printing LEGIBLY

. If you have any questions about how to fill out this application, please call your local voter registrar or the Secretary of State's Office toll free at 1-800-252-VOTE(8683), TDD 1-800-735-2989, www.sos.state.tx.us.

1 These Questions Must Be Completed Before Proceeding

Check one

New Application Change of Address and/or Name Request for a Replacement Card

Are you a United States Citizen? ...................................................................................... Yes

Will you be 18 years of age on or before election day? ................................................... Yes

If you checked 'no' in response to either of the above, do not complete this form.

Are you interested in serving as an election worker? ........................................

............. Yes

No

No

No

2 Last Name First Name Middle Name (If any) Former Name

City State 3 Residence Address: Street Address and Apartment Number. If none, describe where you live. (Do not include P.O. Box, Rural Rt. or Business Address)

Zip Code

City State 4 Mailing Address: Street Address and Apartment Number. (If mail cannot be delivered to your residence address.)

Zip Code

5 Date of Birth: (mm/dd/yyyy) 6 Gender (Optional)

Male Female

7 Telephone Number (Optional)

Include Area Code

( )

8

(Issued by the Department of Public Safety)

If no Texas Driver's License or Personal Identification, give last 4 digits of your Social Security Number xxx-xx-

9

Check if you do not have a Texas Driver's

License, or Texas Personal Identification No.

Check if you do not have a Social Security Number

I understand that giving false information to procure a voter registration is perjury, and a crime under state

and federal law. Conviction of this crime may result in imprisonment up to 180 days, a fine up to $2,000, or both.

I affirm that I

• am a resident of this county and U.S. Citizen;

• have not been finally convicted of a felony, or if a felon, I have completed all of my punishment including any term of incarceration, parole, supervision, period of probation, or I have been pardoned; and

• have not been determined by a final judgment of a court exercising probate jurisdiction to be totally mentally incapacitated or partially mentally incapacitated without the right to vote.

X /

Date

/

Signature of Applicant or Agent and Relationship to Applicant or Printed Name of Applicant if Signed by Witness and Date.


Attachment 2

Voter registration application-english

Fold on line and seal before mailing

For Assistance

Call your local Voter Registrar or

Office of the Secretary of State

Toll Free:

Si necesita asistencia llame gratis al:

1-800-252-VOTE(8683) www.sos.state.tx.us

NO POSTAGE

NECESSARY

IF MAILED

IN THE

UNITED STATES

BUSINESS REPLY MAIL

FIRST CLASS MAIL PERMIT NO. 4511 AUSTIN, TX

POSTAGE WILL BE PAID BY ADDRESSEE

REGISTRAR OF VOTERS

COUNTY COURTHOUSE

(CITY) (ZIP CODE)

_____________________ , TX _______________

Qualifications

Fold on line and seal before mailing

General Information

 You must register to vote in the county in which you reside.





You must be a citizen of the United States.

You must be at least 17 years and 10 months old to register, and you must be 18 years of age by election day.





Your voter registration will become effective 30 days after it is received or on your 18th birthday, whichever is later. Your registration must be effective on or before an election in order to vote in that election.

If you move to another county, you must re-register in the county of your new residence.

 You must not be finally convicted of a felony, or if you are a felon, you must have completed all of your punishment, including any term of incarceration, parole, supervision, period of probation, or you must have received a pardon.

Identification Requirement

If you do not have a Texas driver's license or a social security number, you will be required to present identification when you vote in person or enclose a copy of such identification with your ballot if you vote by mail. Identification includes: a current and valid ID; a copy of a cur rent utility bill; bank statement; government check; paycheck; or other government document that shows your name and address.

-

 You must provide your Texas driver's license or personal identification number. Only when you do not have a driver's license or personal identification number, then give the last four digits of your social security number or if you do not have any of these identification numbers, then you must indicate by checking the appropriate box on the application side.

Este formulario está disponible en Español.

Favor de llamar sin cargo a la oficina del

Secretario de Estado al 1-800-252-8683 para conseguir una version en Español.


Attachment 2

Voter registration application-spanish

Solicitud de registro electoral en Texas

Por orden de la Secretaría de Estado VR17.08S.I2

Exclusivo para uso oficial

Favor de llenar cada sección con letra de molde LEGIBLE. Si tiene dudas acerca de esta solicitud, contacte a su registrador electoral local o llame gratis a la Secretaría de Estado al 1-800-

252-VOTE (8683), TDD (servicio para sordos) 1-800-735-2989 o visite www.sos.state.tx.us.

1 Debe contestar estas preguntas antes de proseguir

Marque un recuadro Nueva solicitud Cambio de domicilio y/o nombre Reemplazo de tarjeta

¿Es usted ciudadano de los Estados Unidos?.........................................................................

Si No

¿Tendrá 18 años cumplidos antes o el día de la elección? ................................................... Si No

Si marcó ‘No’ como respuesta a cualquiera de las preguntas anteriores no llene esta solicitud.

¿Tiene interés en participar como trabajador electoral? ........................................

............ Si No

2 Apellido Primer nombre Segundo nombre

(si aplica)

Nombre anterior

3 Domicilio residencial : Número y calle, y número de departamento o interior. Si no existe un domicilio, describa donde vive rutas rurales o dirección del trabajo).

(no incluya apartados postales,

4 Dirección postal : Número y calle, y número de departamento o interior (si no se puede entregar el correo en su domicilio residencial).

Ciudad

Ciudad

Estado

Código postal

Estado

Código postal

5

8

Fecha de nacimiento: (mm/ dd/aaaa)

No. de licencia de conducir de Texas o no. de identificación

Pública)

6 Sexo

(Optativo)

Masculino Femenino

(Expedido por el Departamento de Seguridad

7 Teléfono (Optativo)

Incluya código de área

( )

Si no tiene licencia de conducir de Texas o no. de identificación personal, proporcione los 4 últimos dígitos de su número de Seguro Social xxx-xx-

9

Marque si no tiene licencia de conducir de Marque si no tiene número de Seguro Social

Texas o no. de identificación personal de Texas

Entiendo que el dar información falsa para obtener una tarjeta de registro electoral constituye el delito de perjurio

bajo las leyes estatales y federales. Cometer este delito puede resultar en privación de la libertad hasta 180

días, multa de hasta $2,000 o ambos castigos.

Afirmo que

• soy residente de este condado y ciudadano de los Estados Unidos;

• no he sido condenado por un delito grave, o en caso de ser delincuente, he purgado mi pena por completo, incluyendo cualquier plazo de encarcelamiento, libertad condicional, supervisión, período de prueba, o se me otorgó

• un indulto; y juzgado de sucesiones.

X firma es la de un testigo, y fecha.

/

Fecha

/

Firma del solicitante o su agente (apoderado) y relación de éste con el solicitante, o nombre en letra del molde del solicitante si la


Attachment 2

Voter registration application-spanish

Doble por la línea y selle antes de enviar

Si necesita asistencia contacte a su registrador electoral local o llame gratis a la Secretaría de Estado al:

1-800-252-VOTE(8683) www.sos.state.tx.us

NO POSTAGE

NECESSARY

IF MAILED

IN THE

UNITED STATES

BUSINESS REPLY MAIL

FIRST CLASS MAIL PERMIT NO. 4511 AUSTIN, TX

POSTAGE WILL BE PAID BY ADDRESSEE

REGISTRAR OF VOTERS

COUNTY COURTHOUSE

(CIUDAD) (CODIGO POSTAL)

_____________________ , TX _______________

Requisitos

Doble por la línea y selle antes de enviar

Información general

 Estar registrado para votar en su condado de residencia.

 Ser ciudadano de los Estados Unidos.

 Tener cumplidos 17 años y 10 meses de edad para registrarse, y 18 años cumplidos el día de la elección.

 No haber sido condenado por un delito grave, o en caso de ser delincuente, haber purgado la pena por completo, incluyendo cualquier plazo de encarcelamiento, libertad condicional, supervisión, período de prueba, o haber obtenido un indulto.

Requisito de identificación

Si no cuenta con una licencia de conducir de Texas o un número de seguro social, será requerido que presente una identificación al votar en persona o que incluya copia de la misma con su boleta si vota por correspondencia. Dicha identificación incluye: cédula de identidad vigente y válida; copia de una factura vigente de servicios municipales (agua, luz, etc.); estado de cuenta bancario; cheque expedido por el gobierno; cheque de sueldo o salario; u otro documento oficial que muestre su nombre y direc ción.

 Su registro electoral entrará en vigor después de

30 días de ser recibido o cuando usted cumpla

18 años, lo que ocurra más tarde. Su registro deberá estar vigente durante o con anterioridad a una elección para que pueda usted votar en la misma.

 Si se muda a otro condado, deberá registrarse nuevamente en su nuevo condado de residencia.

 Proporcione el número de su licencia de conducir de Texas o su número de identificación personal.

Si no cuenta con ninguno de estos números, proporcione los últimos cuatro dígitos de su número de seguro social; y si no cuenta con éste, deberá indicarlo marcando el recuadro que aparece en la solicitud.

This application is available in English. Please call the Office of the Secretary of State toll free at 1.800.252.8683 to receive a copy in

English.


Attachment 3

application for early Voting by Mail ballot


Attachment 4

application for a place on the ballot

A2-2PM, Prescribed by Secretary of State, Sections 141.031, 172.021, Texas Election Code, 9/05 all information is required to be provided unless indicated as optional.

(Se requiere toda la información, a menos que haya alguna indicación que no es obligatoria.) aPPlIcaTIoN for a PlacE oN THE ____________________ ParTY GENEral PrImarY balloT

(APLICACION PARA UN LUGAR EN LA BOLETA DE LA PRIMARIA GENERAL DEL PARTIDO ________________________ )

TO: State/County Chair (A: Nombre o Título del Propio Oficial del Partido)

I request that my name be placed on the above-named official primary ballot as a candidate for nomination to the office indicated below.

(Solicito que mi nombre esté puesto en la arriba nombrada boleta oficial de esta primaria como candidato para la nominación al puesto oficial indicado abajo.) offIcE SouGHT (PUESTO OFICIAL SOLICITADO)

Include any place number or other distinguishing number.

(Incluya cualquier número de lugar u otro número que hace el puesto oficial diferente a otros.)

INDIcaTE full or uNEXPIrED TErm

(INDIQUE SI EL TERMINO DEL PUESTO OFICIAL ES TERMINO COMPLETO O NO

COMPLETADO) full NamE (first, middle, last)

(NOMBRE COMPLETO) (Nombre de Pila, Segundo Nombre, Apellido)

PrINT NamE aS You WaNT IT To aPPEar oN THE balloT

(ESCRIBA SU NOMBRE COMO DESEA QUE APAREZCA EN LA BOLETA)

PErmaNENT rESIDENcE aDDrESS (Street address and apartment number. If none, describe location of residence. Do not include

P.o. box or rural rt.) (DIRECCION DE RESIDENCIA PERMANENTE: Calle y

Número de Departamento: si no tiene, describa la localidad de su residencia. No incluya su caja postal o ruta rural.) cITY, STaTE

(CIUDAD), (ESTADO) occuPaTIoN

(EMPLEO) maIlING aDDrESS (If different from residence address)

(DIRECCION POSTAL (Si es diferente a su dirección de residencia))

ZIP

(ZONA POSTAL)

DaTE of bIrTH

(FECHA DE NACIMIENTO) cITY, STaTE

(CIUDAD), (ESTADO) couNTY of rESIDENcE

(CONDADO DE RESIDENCIA)

ZIP

(ZONA POSTAL)

TElEPHoNE NumbEr (Include area code) (optional)

(NUMERO DE TELEFONO—Incluya el codigo de la areá) (Facultativo) offIcE:

(DE SU OFICINA:)

HomE:

(DE SU DOMICILIO:) length of continuous residence as of Date application Sworn

(Tiempo que ha Residido en un Solo Lugar en la Fecha en que Prestó Juramento Sobre la Solicitud)

IN STaTE

(EN EL ESTADO)

_____ yr(s) _____ mos

(año(s) (mes(es))

IN couNTY

(EN EL CONDADO)

_____ yr(s) _____ mos

(año(s) (mes(es))

IN DISTrIcT or PrEcINcT

(EN EL DISTRITO O PRECINTO)

_____ yr(s) _____ mos

(año(s) (mes(es)) before me, the undersigned authority, on this day personally appeared ___________________________________, who being by me here and now duly sworn, upon oath says: "I, ___________________________________, of ___________________________________ county, Texas, being a candidate for the office of ___________________________________, swear that I will support and defend the constitution and laws of the united

States and of the State of Texas. I am a citizen of the united States eligible to hold such office under the constitution and laws of this state. I have not been declared mentally incompetent as determined by final judgment of a court, nor have I been finally convicted of a felony for which I have not been pardoned or had my full rights of citizenship restored by other official action. I am aware of the nepotism law, chapter 573, Government code.

If using a nickname as part of your name to appear on the ballot, you are also signing and swearing to the following statements: I further swear that my nickname does not constitute a slogan nor does it indicate a political, economic, social, or religious view or affiliation. I have been commonly known by this nickname for at least three years prior to this election.

I further swear that the foregoing statements included in my application are in all things true and correct."

(Ante mí, la autoridad, suscrita apareció en persona __________________________________________, quien habiendo aquí y ahora prestado juramento debido, bajo juramento dice:

"Yo, ___________________________________, del condado de ___________________________________, Texas, siendo candidato para el puesto oficial de

___________________________________ solemnemente juro que apoyaré y defenderé la Constitución y las leyes de los Estados Unidos y del Estado de Texas. Soy ciudadano de los Estados

Unidos elegible para ocupar tal puesto oficial bajo la Constitución y las leyes de este Estado. No he sido declarado incapacitado de la mente como determinado por la decisión final de una corte, ni he sido probado culpable finalmente de una felonía por la cual no he sido perdonado o por la cual no se me han restituido enteramente mis derechos de ciudadanía por medio de otra acción oficial. Yo tengo conocimiento de la ley sobre el nepotismo según el capítulo 573 de Código Gobierno.

Para poder incluir un apodo como parte de su nombre completo en la boleta, Ud.debera firmar la siguiente constancia: Ademas, juro que se me ha conocido por este apodo por mas de tres años. Ademas, juro que el apodo no es un lema politico ni una indicacion de mis creencias o afiliaciones politicas, economicas, sociales, o religiosas.

Además juro que las precedentes declaraciones que incluyo en mi solicitud son verdaderas y están correctas en todo sentido.")

X

SIGNaTurE of caNDIDaTE (FIRMA DEL CANDIDATO)

Sworn to and subscribed before me at ____________________, this the __________ day of ____________________, _________.

(Jurado y suscrito ante mí en ____________________, este día __________ de ____________________, _________.)

SEal

(SELLO)

___________________________________________

Signature of officer administering oath ¹

(Firma del oficial administrando el juramento)

______________________________________________

Title of officer administering oath

(Título del oficial administrando el juramento)


crossword puzzle #1

Attachment 5

word list

ballot box group member rights rules self vote

Across Clues:

3. When you choose what or who you want in an election

4. A list of people or things that members of a group can vote on.

5. Things that a member can do that the group’s rule cannot take away.

8. Things that a group agrees upon, that tell the group what they can and cannot do.

Down Clues:

1. A thing in which ballots are placed.

2. A person in a group.

6. A number of people that get together for some reason.

7. A person, an individual, you!


Attachment 5

crossword puzzle #2 word list

ballot box candidate city council democracy editorial eligibility mass meeting mass media majority paper ballot politics precinct referendum registrar registration vote voting machine

Across Clues:

2. To express one’s wish or choice.

3. A government by the people.

5. A list of people or things that members of a group may vote on.

8. Submitting a piece of legislation to a popular vote.

12. A gathering of citizens for the discussion of a public issue (2 words).

13. A mechanical or electronic device used to record votes.

14. An expression of opinion by a form of mass media.

15. An official recorder or keeper of the eligible voter list and voting record.

16. Governmental body that provides representative leadership for an incorporated, developed area (2 words).

17. One who is running for office.

Down Clues:

1. Relating to the promotion of policy in a government body.

4. A form of communication designed to approach the bulk of society (2 words).

5. A thing in which completed ballots are placed.

6. A subdivision of a city or county often for the purpose of elections.

7. Providing proof of voting.

9. Requirements set by a governmental body for whether or not a citizen can vote.

10. Constituting more than half of the total number.

11. A printed form on which a person’s vote is recorded (2 words).


crossword puzzle #3

Attachment 5

Evaluate crossword puzzles.

word list

ballot candidate campaign nominate polls register elections returns running mate vote

Across Clues:

1. One who is running for office.

5. A candidate who runs for office with another candidate from the same party. (2 words)

6. To express one’s wish or choice.

8. A place where people go to vote.

9. What someone must do before they are able to vote.

10. The things a candidate does to help get elected while running for office.

Down Clues:

2. A way in which a candidate is chosen to be in an election.

3. The results of an election.

4. A list of names or items that a person chooses from when he votes.

7. A way in which a candidate is chosen for office by others.


Attachment 5

solution to crossword puzzle #1



Attachment 5

E T I N


Attachment 5



Bibliography

American Government, Principles and Practices , Merrill Publishing Co.

American Government , Rosencrantz & Chapin

Dictionary of American Politics, Smith & Zurcher

Magruder’s American Government, McClenaghan

Practicing Texas Politics , Jones, Houghton Mifflin

U. S. Almanac, current

Texas Almanac, current

Texas Election Bulletin , current


History of the Electoral College

Major Idea

To understand why the Electoral College was created and how it works.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

1. define election, electoral college, and electors

2. discuss the history of the Electoral College from its origination to its current design

3. calculate the number of electoral votes for each state

4. determine which states would be most important in a presidential campaign

5. determine which combination of states would produce a tie in the Electoral

College

6. calculate how a candidate with a minority of the popular vote could win a presidential election

7. chronologically describe the Electoral College procedure

8. list the advantages and disadvantages of the Electoral College


Government 11A, B; 12A, B, C, D; 16A; 17A; 21C; 22A, B, D.

Materials Needed

Attachment 6: Map of the United States

Attachment 7: Chronological Arrangement of the Electoral College Procedure

Attachment 8: Election Dates Exercise

Attachment 9: Electoral College Procedures Exercise

Background Information

United States Constitution

Reference Books/Materials

Vocabulary election electoral college electors



Teaching Strategies

1. Divide the class into groups of three to five students. Have each group prepare a presentation for the class using a presidential election of historical curiousity

(1800, 1824, 1836, 1872, 1876, 1888) as a topic. The group’s discussion should include the interesting developments and outcome of the election.

After each group has given their presentation, lead the entire class in a discussion of whether these were examples of what can go wrong with the

Electoral College, or were indicators of profound political divisions within the country that needed resolution at a higher level. Use the class presentations as a means of discussing how it is possible for a candidate to lose the popular vote and still become President of the United States. The exercise on Attachment 9 further illustrates this idea.

2. Discuss the evolution of the Electoral College. Include in the discussion why the Electoral College was created and why changes to the original design were deemed necessary. Remind students that there were no political parties or national campaigns when the Electoral College was created. Also mention the other ideas proposed at the Constitutional Convention for selecting a president and the reasons they were rejected.

3. Explain to students that presidential elections are different than any other election held in the United States. Present these differences to the students while giving basic definitions of the terms election, Electoral College and

electors. Quiz students later to determine that they can distinguish between these similar terms.

4. Ask students to calculate the total number of Electoral College votes for five states. They can do this by completing Attachment 6. Once they have finished the exercise, they will realize there are still three Electoral College votes unaccounted for. Have them determine where these votes come from and write their answer(s) on the lines below the map.

5. Have students use Attachment 6 to answer basic questions about electoral votes. Examples of questions are:

1. How many electoral votes does a candidate need to win the presidential election?

2. Which state has the most electoral votes and which has the least?

3. What is the least number of states a candidate must carry and be able to win the election? Name the states required.



4. If you were running for president which states would be a top priority for your campaign?

6. Have students use Attachment 6 to determine which states would produce a tie in the Electoral College. Students should also be able to answer the following questions:

1. Who elects the next president if a tie in the Electoral College occurs?

2. When do U.S. citizens know that a tie has occurred in the Electoral

College?

7. For students to understand the Electoral College procedure, it is essential for them to know the sequence of events that take place. Have students complete Attachment 7. This assignment can be done on an individual or group basis.

8. Have students conduct a class debate regarding the advantages and disadvantages of the Electoral College. Divide the class into groups and have students propose ideas for alternative methods of electing a president. If they do not feel there is any better method, have them give reasons why they consider this the best procedure for electing a president.



The Electoral College

Author:

William C. Kimberling

Published by:

National Clearinghouse on Election Administration

Federal Election Commission

Washington, D.C. 20463

May 1992

The Electoral College

In order to appreciate the reasons for the Electoral College, it is essential to understand its historical context and the problem that the Founding Fathers were trying to solve. They faced the difficult question of how to elect a president in a nation that:

• was composed of thirteen large and small States jealous of their own rights and powers and suspicious of any central national government

• contained only 4,000,000 people spread up and down a thousand miles of

Atlantic seaboard barely connected by transportation or communication

(so that national campaigns were impractical even if they had been thought desirable)

• believed, under the influence of such British political thinkers as Henry St.

John Bolingbroke, that political parties were mischievous if not downright evil, and

• felt that gentlemen should not campaign for public office (The saying was

“The office should seek the man, the man should not seek the office.”).

How, then, to choose a president without political parties, without national campaigns, and without upsetting the carefully designed balance between the presidency and the Congress on one hand and between the States and the federal government on the other?

Origins of the Electoral College

The Constitutional Convention considered several possible methods of selecting a president.

One idea was to have the Congress choose the president. This idea was rejected, however, because some felt that making such a choice would be too divisive an issue and leave too many hard feelings in the Congress. Others felt that such a procedure would invite unseemly political bargaining, corruption, and perhaps even interference from foreign powers. Still others felt that such an arrangement would upset the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.



A second idea was to have the State legislatures select the president. This idea, too, was rejected out of fears that a president so beholden to the State legislatures might permit them to erode federal authority and thus undermine the whole idea of a federation.

A third idea was to have the president elected by popular vote. Direct election was rejected not because the Framers of the Constitution doubted public intelligence but rather because they feared that without sufficient information about candidates from outside their State, people would naturally vote for a

“favorite son” from their own State or region. At worst, no president would emerge with a popular majority sufficient to govern the whole country. At best, the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones.

Finally, a so-called “Committee of Eleven” in the Constitutional Convention proposed an indirect election of the president through a College of Electors.

The function of the College of Electors in choosing the president can be likened to that in the Roman Catholic Church of the College of Cardinals selecting the

Pope. The original idea was for the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each state to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party.

The structure of the Electoral College can be traced to the, Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic. Under that system, the adult male citizens of Rome were divided, according to their wealth, into groups of 100 (called Centuries).

Each group of 100 was entitled to cast only one vote either in favor or against proposals submitted to them by the Roman Senate. In the Electoral College system, the States serve as the Centurial groups (though they are not, of course, based on wealth), and the number of votes per State is determined by the size of each State’s Congressional delegation. Still, the two systems are similar in design and share many of the same advantages and disadvantages.

The similarities between the Electoral College and classical institutions are not accidental. Many of the Founding Fathers were well schooled in ancient history and its lessons.

The First Design

In the first design of the Electoral College (described in Article II, Section 1 of the

Constitution):

• Each State was allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its

U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representatives (which may change each decade according to the size of each State’s population as determined in the decennial census). This arrangement built upon an earlier compromise in the design of the Congress itself and thus satisfied both large and small states.



• The manner of choosing the Electors was left to the individual State legislatures, thereby pacifying States suspicious of a central national government.

• Members of Congress and employees of the federal government were specifically prohibited from serving as an Elector in order to maintain the balance between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

• Each State’s Electors were required to meet in their respective States rather than all together in one great meeting. This arrangement, it was thought, would prevent bribery, corruption, secret dealing, and foreign influence.

• In order to prevent Electors from voting only for a “favorite son” of their own State, each Elector was required to cast two votes for president, at least one of which had to be for someone outside their home State. The idea, presumably, was that the winner would likely be everyone’s second favorite choice.

• The electoral votes were to be sealed and transmitted from each of the

States to the President of the Senate who would then open them before both houses of the Congress and read the results.

• The person with the most electoral votes, provided that it was an absolute majority (at least one over half of the total), became president. Whoever obtained the next greatest number of electoral votes became vice president-an office which they seem to have invented for the occasion since it had not been mentioned previously in the Constitutional Convention.

• In the event that no one obtained an absolute majority in the Electoral

College or in the event of a tie vote, the U.S. House of Representatives, as the chamber closest to the people, would choose the president from among the top five contenders. They would do this (as a further concession to the small States) by allowing each State to cast only one vote with an absolute majority of the States being required to elect a president. The vice presidency would go to whatever remaining contender had the greatest number of electoral votes. If that, too, was tied, the U.S. Senate would break the tie by deciding between the two.

In all, this was quite an elaborate design. But it was also a very clever one when you consider that the whole operation was supposed to work without political parties and without national campaigns while maintaining the balances and satisfying the fears in play at the time. Indeed, it is probably because the Electoral

College was originally designed to operate in an environment so totally different from our own that many people think it is anachronistic and fail to appreciate the new purposes it now serves. But of that, more later.



The Second Design

The first design of the Electoral College lasted through only four presidential elections. For in the meantime, political parties had emerged in the United States.

The very people who had been condemning parties publicly had nevertheless been building them privately. And too, the idea of political parties had gained respectability through the persuasive writings of such political philosophers as

Edmund Burke and James Madison.

One of the accidental results of the development of political parties was that in the presidential election of 1800, the Electors of the Democratic-Republican Party gave Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr (both of that party) an equal number of electoral votes. The tie was resolved by the House of Representatives in Jefferson’s favor —but only after 36 tries and some serious political dealings which were considered unseemly at the time. Since this sort of bargaining over the presidency was the very thing the Electoral College was supposed to prevent, the Congress and the States hastily adopted the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution by

September of 1804.

To prevent tie votes in the Electoral College which were made probable, if not inevitable, by the rise of political parties (and no doubt to facilitate the election of a president and vice president of the same party), the 12th Amendment requires that each Elector cast one vote for president and a separate vote for vice president rather than casting two votes for president with the runner-up being made vice president. The Amendment also stipulates that if no one receives an absolute majority of electoral votes for president, then the U.S. House of Representatives will select the president from among the top three contenders with each State casting only one vote and an absolute majority being required to elect. By the same token, if no one receives an absolute majority for vice president, then the U.S.

Senate will select the vice president from among the top two contenders for that office. All other features of the Electoral College remained the same including the requirement that, in order to prevent Electors from voting only for “favorite sons”, either the presidential or vice presidential candidate has to be from a State other than that of the Electors.

In short, political party loyalties had, by 1800, begun to cut across State loyalties thereby creating new and different problems in the selection of a president. By making seemingly slight changes, the 12th Amendment fundamentally altered the design of the Electoral College and, in one stroke, accommodated political parties as a fact of life in American presidential elections.

It is noteworthy in passing that the idea of electing the president by direct popular vote was not widely promoted as an alternative to redesigning the Electoral

College. This may be because the physical and demographic circumstances of the country had not changed that much in a dozen or so years. Or it may be because the excesses of the recent French revolution (and its fairly rapid degeneration into dictatorship) had given the populists some pause to reflect on the wisdom of too direct a democracy.



The Evolution of the Electoral College

Since the 12th Amendment, there have been several federal and State statutory changes which have affected both the time and manner of choosing Presidential

Electors but which have not further altered the fundamental workings of the

Electoral College. There have also been a few curious incidents which its critics cite as problems but which proponents of the Electoral College view as merely its natural and intended operation.

The Manner of Choosing Electors

From the outset, and to this day, the manner of choosing its State’s Electors was left to each State legislature. And initially, as one might expect, different States adopted different methods.

Some State legislatures decided to choose the Electors themselves. Others decided on a direct popular vote for Electors either by Congressional district or at large throughout the whole State. Still others devised some combination of these methods. But in all cases, Electors were chosen individually from a single list of all candidates for the position.

During the 1800’s, two trends in the States altered and more or less standardized the manner of choosing Electors. The first trend was toward choosing Electors by the direct popular vote of the whole State (rather than by the State legislature or by the popular vote of each Congressional district). Indeed, by 1836, all States had moved to choosing their Electors by a direct statewide popular vote except

South Carolina which persisted in choosing them by the State legislature until

1860. Today, all States choose their Electors by direct statewide election except

Maine (which in 1969) and Nebraska (which in 1991) changed to selecting two of its Electors by a statewide popular vote and the remainder by the popular vote in each Congressional district.

Along with the trend toward their direct statewide election came the trend toward what is called the “winner-take-all” system of choosing Electors. Under the winner-take-all system, the presidential candidate who wins the most popular votes within a State wins all of that State’s Electors. This winner-take-all system was really the logical consequence of the direct statewide vote for Electors owing to the influence of political parties. For in a direct popular election, voters loyal to one political party’s candidate for president would naturally vote for that party’s list of proposed Electors. By the same token, political parties would propose only as many Electors as there were electoral votes in the State so as not to fragment their support and thus permit the victory of another party’s Elector.

There arose, then, the custom that each political party would, in each State, offer a “slate of Electors”—a list of individuals loyal to their candidate for president and equal in number to that State’s electoral vote. The voters of each State would then vote for each individual listed in the slate of whichever party’s candidate they preferred. Yet the business of presenting separate party slates of individuals


Background Information occasionally led to confusion. Some voters divided their votes between party lists because of personal loyalties to the individuals involved rather than according to their choice for president. Other voters, either out of fatigue or confusion, voted for fewer than the entire party list. The result, especially in close elections, was the occasional splitting of a State’s electoral vote. This happened as late as 1916 in

West Virginia when seven Republican Electors and one Democrat Elector won.

Today, the individual party candidates for Elector are seldom listed on the ballot.

Instead, the expression “Electors for” usually appears in fine print on the ballot in front of each set of candidates for president and vice president (or else the

State law specifies that votes cast for the candidates are to be counted as being for the slate of delegates pledged to those candidates). It is still true, however, that voters are actually casting their votes for the Electors for the presidential and vice presidential candidates of their choice rather than for the candidates themselves.

The Time of Choosing Electors

The time for choosing Electors has undergone a similar evolution. For while the

Constitution specifically gives to the Congress the power to “determine the Time of chusing the Electors”, the Congress at first gave some lattitude to the States.

For the first fifty years of the Federation, Congress permitted the States to conduct their presidential elections (or otherwise to choose their Electors) anytime in a 34 day period before the first Wednesday of December which was the day set for the meeting of the Electors in their respective States. The problems born of such an arrangement are obvious and were intensified by improved communications. For the States which voted later could swell, diminish, or be influenced by a candidate’s victories in the States which voted earlier. In close elections, the States which voted last might well determine the outcome. (And it is perhaps for this reason that South

Carolina, always among the last States to choose its Electors, maintained for so long its tradition of choosing them by the State legislature. In close elections, the

South Carolina State legislature might well decide the presidency!).

The Congress, in 1845, therefore adopted a uniform day on which the States were to choose their Electors. That day—the Tuesday following the first Monday in November in years divisible by four—continues to be the day on which all the

States now conduct their presidential elections.

Historical Curiosities

In the evolution of the Electoral College, there have been some interesting developments and remarkable outcomes. Critics often try to use these as examples of what can go wrong. Yet most of these historical curiosities were the result of profound political divisions within the country which the designers of the

Electoral College system seem to have anticipated as needing resolution at a higher level.



• In 1800, as previously noted, the Democratic-Republican Electors gave both

Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr an equal number of electoral votes. The tie, settled in Jefferson’s favor by the House of Representatives in accordance with the original design of the Electoral College system, prompted the

12th Amendment which effectively prevented this sort of thing from ever happening again.

• In 1824, there were four fairly strong contenders in the presidential contest

(Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William Crawford, and Henry

Clay) each of whom represented an important faction within the now vastly dominant Democratic-Republican Party. The electoral votes were so divided amongst them that no one received the necessary majority to become president (although the popular John C. Calhoun did receive enough electoral votes to become vice president). In accordance with the provisions of the 12th Amendment, the choice of president devolved upon the House of Representatives who narrowly selected John Quincy Adams despite the fact that Andrew Jackson had obtained the greater number of electoral votes. This election is often cited as the first one in which the candidate who obtained the greatest popular vote (Jackson) failed to be elected president. The claim is a weak one, though, since six of the twenty four States at the time still chose their Electors in the State legislature.

Some of these (such as sizable New York) would likely have returned large majorities for Adams had they conducted a popular election.

• The 1836 presidential election was a truly strange event. The developing

Whig Party, for example, decided to run three different presidential candidates (William Henry Harrison, Daniel Webster, and Hugh White) in separate parts of the country. The idea was that their respective regional popularities would ensure a Whig majority in the Electoral College which would then decide on a single Whig presidential ticket. This fairly inspired scheme failed, though, when Democratic-Republican candidate Martin

Van Buren won an absolute majority of Electors. Nor has such a strategy ever again been seriously attempted. Yet Van Buren himself did not escape the event entirely unscathed. For while he obtained an electoral majority, his vice presidential running mate (one Richard Johnson) was considered so objectionable by some of the Democratic-Republican Electors that he failed to obtain the necessary majority of electoral votes to become vice president. In accordance with the 12th Amendment, the decision devolved upon the Senate which chose Johnson as vice president anyway. A really bizarre election, that one.

• In the 1872 election, Democratic candidate Horace Greeley (he of earlier

“Go West, young man, go West” journalistic fame whose nomination makes a good story in itself) thoughtlessly died during that period between the popular vote for Electors and the meeting of the Electoral College.

The Electors who were pledged to him clearly unprepared for such an eventuality, split their electoral votes amongst several other Democratic


Background Information candidates (including three votes for Greeley himself as a possible comment on the incumbent Ulysses S. Grant). That hardly mattered, though, since the

Republican Grant had readily won an absolute majority of Electors. Still it was an interesting event for which the political parties are now prepared.

• In 1876, the country once again found itself in serious political turmoil echoing, in some respects, both the economic divisions of 1824 and the impending political party realignments of 1836 but with the added bitterness of Reconstruction. A number of deep cross currents were in play. After a vast economic expansion, the country had fallen into a deep depression.

Monetary and tariff issues were eroding the Union Republican coalition of

East and West while a solid Republican black vote eroded the traditional

Democratic hold on the South. The incumbent Republican administration of Grant had suffered a seemingly endless series of scandals involving graft and corruption on a scale hitherto unknown. And the South was eager to put an end to Radical Reconstruction which was, after all, a kind of vast political mugging. Against this backdrop, the resurging Democratic Party easily nominated Samuel J. Tilden, the popular Governor of New York, and

Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana (shrewd geographic choices under the circumstances). The Republicans, in a more turbulent convention, selected

Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler of New York. A variety of fairly significant third parties also cropped up, further shattering the country’s political cohesion.

This is about as good a prescription for electoral chaos as anyone might hope for.

Indeed, it is almost surprising that things did not turn out worse than they did. For on election night, it looked as though Tilden had pulled off the first Democratic presidential victory since the Civil War—although the decisive electoral votes of

South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana remained in balance. Yet these States were as divided internally as was the nation at large. Without detailing the machinations of the vote count, suffice it to say that each State finally delivered to the Congress two sets of electoral votes—one set for Tilden and one set for Hayes. Because the Congressional procedures for resolving disputed sets of Electors had expired, the Congress established a special 15-member commission to decide the issue in each of the three States. After much partisan intrigue, the special commission decided (by one vote in each case) on Hayes’ Electors from all three States.

Thus, Hayes was elected president despite the fact that Tilden, by everyone’s count, had obtained a slight majority of popular votes (although the difference was a mere 3% of the total vote cast). As a final note, the Congress enacted in

1887 legislation that delegated to each State the final authority to determine the legality of its choice of Electors and required a concurrent majority of both houses of Congress to reject any electoral vote. That legislation remains in effect to this day so that the events of 1876 will not repeat themselves.

• Benjamin Harrison’s election in 1888 is really the only clear cut instance in which the Electoral College vote went contrary to the popular vote. This happened because the incumbent, Democrat Grover Cleveland, ran up


Background Information huge popular majorities in several of the 18 States which supported him while the Republican challenger, Benjamin Harrison, won only slender majorities in some of the larger of the 20 States which supported him (most notably in Cleveland’s home State of New York). Even so, the difference between them was only 110,476 votes out of 11,381,032 cast— less than 1% of the total. Interestingly, in this case, there were few critical issues (other than tariffs) separating the candidates so that the election seems to have been fought—and won—more on the basis of superior party organization in getting out the vote than on the issues of the day.

These, then, are the major historical curiosities of the Electoral College system. And because they are so frequently cited as flaws in the system a few observations on them seem in order.

First, all of these events occurred over a century ago. For the past hundred years, the Electoral College has functioned without incident in every presidential election through two world wars, a major economic depression, and several periods of acute civil unrest. Only twice in this century (the States’ Rights Democrats in

1948 and George Wallace’s American Independents in 1968) have there been attempts to block an Electoral College victory and thus either force a negotiation for the presidency or else force the decision into the Congress. Neither attempt came close to succeeding. Such stability, rare in human history, should not be lightly dismissed.

Second, each of these events (except 1888) resulted either from political inexperience (as in 1800,1836, and 1872) or from profound political divisions within the country (as in 1824, 1876, and even 1948 and 1968) which required some sort of higher order political resolution. And all of them were resolved in a peaceable and orderly fashion without any public uprising and without endangering the legitimacy of the sitting president. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how a direct election of the president could have resolved events as agreeably.

Finally, as the election of 1888 demonstrates, the Electoral College system imposes two requirements on candidates for the presidency:

• that the victor obtain a sufficient popular vote to enable him to govern

(although this may not be the absolute majority), and

• that such a popular vote be sufficiently distributed across the country to enable him to govern.

Such an arrangement ensures a regional balance of support which is a vital consideration in governing a large and diverse nation (even though in close elections, as in 1888, distribution of support may take precedence over majority of support).

Far from being flaws, then, the historical oddities described above demonstrate the strength and resilience of the Electoral College system in being able to select a president in even the most troubled of times.



Current Workings of the Electoral College

The current workings of the Electoral College are the result of both design and experience. As it now operates:

• Each State is allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its U.S.

Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representatives (which may change each decade according to the size of each State’s population as determined in the Census).

• The political parties (or independent candidates) in each State submit to the

State’s chief election official a list of individuals pledged to their candidate for president and equal in number to the State’s electoral vote. Usually, the major political parties select these individuals in their State party conventions while third parties and independent candidates merely designate theirs.

• Members of Congress and employees of the federal government are prohibited from serving as an Elector in order to maintain the balance between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

• After their caucuses and primaries, the major parties nominate their candidates for president and vice president in their national conventions— traditionally held in the summer preceding the election. (Third parties and independent candidates follow different procedures according to the individual State laws). The names of the duly nominated candidates are then officially submitted to each State’s chief election official so that they might appear on the general election ballot.

• On the Tuesday following the first Monday of November in years divisible by four, the people in each State cast their ballots for the party slate of Electors representing their choice for president and vice president (although as a matter of practice, general election ballots normally say “Electors for” each set of candidates rather than list the individual Electors on each slate).

• Whichever party slate wins the most popular votes in the State becomes that State’s Electors—so that, in effect, whichever presidential ticket gets the most popular votes in a State wins all the Electors of that State. [The two exceptions to this are Maine and Nebraska where two Electors are chosen by a statewide popular vote and the remainder by the popular vote within each Congressional district].

• On the Monday following the second Wednesday of December (as established in federal law) each State’s Electors meet in their respective

State capitals and cast their electoral votes—one for president and one for vice president.

• In order to prevent Electors from voting only for “favorite sons” of their home

State, at least one of their votes must be for a person from outside their

State (though this is seldom a problem since the parties have consistently nominated presidential and vice presidential candidates from different

States).



• The electoral votes are then sealed and transmitted from each State to the

President of the Senate who, on the following January 6, opens and reads them before both houses of the Congress.

• The candidate for president with the most electoral votes, provided that it is an absolute majority (one over half of the total), is declared president.

Similarly, the vice presidential candidate with the absolute majority of electoral votes is declared vice president.

• In the event no one obtains an absolute majority of electoral votes for president, the U.S. House of Representatives (as the chamber closest to the people) selects the president from among the top three contenders with each State casting only one vote and an absolute majority of the States being required to elect. Similarly, if no one obtains an absolute majority for vice president, then the U.S. Senate makes the selection from among the top two contenders for that office.

• At noon on January 20, the duly elected president and vice president are sworn into office.

Occasionally questions arise about what would happen if the presidential or vice presidential candidate died at some point in this process. For answers to these, as well as to a number of other “what if” questions, readers are advised to consult a small volume entitled After the People Vote: Steps in Choosing the President edited by Walter Berns and published in 1983 by the American Enterprise Institute.

Similarly, further details on the history and current functioning of the Electoral

College are available in the second edition of Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections, a real goldmine of information, maps, and statistics.



Succession of the President

The succession of the President, as stated in Amendment 25 of the U.S. Constitution, is as follows:

Amendment 25: In case of death, resignation, unable to perform duties of the

President or removed from office (impeached and convicted), the Vice-President becomes President and then appoints a new Vice-President.

Succession Order:

1. Vice-President

2. Speaker of the House

3. President pro tempore of the Senate

4. Secretary of State

5. Secretary of the Treasury

6. Secretary of Defense

7. Attorney General

8. Secretary of the Interior

9. Secretary of Agriculture

10. Secretary of Commerce

11. Secretary of Labor

12. Secretary of Health and Human Services

13. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

14. Secretary of Transportation

15. Secretary of Energy

16. Secretary of Education

17. Secretary of Veterans Affairs

18. Secretary of Homeland Security

Note: An official cannot succeed to the Presidency unless that person meets the

Constitutional requirements.



Distribution of Electoral Votes

Total Electoral Vote = 538 Needed to Elect = 270

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

D.C.

Florida

Georga

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Lousiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

5

4

4

16

10

7

11

4

4

10

13

20

8

7

9

10

4

4

24

12

3

3

21

12

8

8

6

47

3

7

1981-1990

9

29

5

3

12

4

8

3

11

10

6

11

3

23

8

7

25

5

36

13

3


5

4

4

15

10

7

11

3

4

10

12

18

8

9

7

6

4

4

22

12

3

3

25

13

8

8

6

54

3

8

1991-2000

9

32

5

3

13

4

8

3

11

11

5

11

3

21

8

7

23

5

33

14

3

5

5

4

15

10

6

11

3

4

10

12

17

8

9

7

6

4

4

21

11

3

3

27

15

9

7

6

55

2001-2010

9

3

10

34

5

3

13

4

8

3

11

11

5

10

3

20

7

7

21

5

31

15

3


the pro’s and con’s of the electoral college systeM

There have, in its 200-year history, been a number of critics and proposed reforms to the Electoral College system—most of them trying to eliminate it. But there are also staunch defenders of the Electoral College who, though perhaps less vocal than its critics, offer very powerful arguments in its favor.

Arguments Against the Electoral College

Those who object to the Electoral College system and favor a direct popular election of the president generally do so on four grounds:

• the possibility of electing a minority president,

• the risk of so-called “faithless” Electors,

• the possible role of the Electoral College in depressing voter turnout, and

• its failure to accurately reflect the national popular will.

Opponents of the Electoral College are disturbed by the possibility of electing a minority president (one without the absolute majority of popular votes). Nor is this concern entirely unfounded since there are three ways in which that could happen.

One way in which a minority president could be elected is if the country were so deeply divided politically that three or more presidential candidates split the electoral votes among them such that no one obtained the necessary majority.

This occurred, as noted above, in 1824 and was unsuccessfully attempted in 1948 and again in 1968. Should that happen today, there are two possible resolutions: either one candidate could throw his electoral votes to the support of another

(before the meeting of the Electors) or else, absent an absolute majority in the

Electoral College, the U.S. House of Representatives would select the president in accordance with the 12th Amendment. Either way, though, the person taking office would not have obtained the absolute majority of the popular vote. Yet it is unclear how a direct election of the president could resolve such a deep national conflict without introducing a presidential run-off election—a procedure which would add substantially to the time, cost, and effort already devoted to selecting a president and which might well deepen the political divisions while trying to resolve them.

A second way in which a minority president could take office is if, as in 1888, one candidate’s popular support were heavily concentrated in a few States while the other candidate maintained a slim popular lead in enough States to win the needed majority of the Electoral College. While the country has occasionally come close to this sort of outcome, the question here is whether the distribution of a candidate’s popular support should be taken into account alongside the relative size of it. This issue was mentioned above and is discussed at greater length below.



A third way of electing a minority president is if a third party or candidate, however small, drew enough votes from the top two that no one received over 50% of the national popular total. Far from being unusual, this sort of thing has, in fact, happened 15 times including (in this century) Wilson in both 1912 and 1916, Truman in 1948, Kennedy in 1960, and Nixon in 1968. The only remarkable thing about those outcomes is that few people noticed and even fewer cared. Nor would a direct election have changed those outcomes without a run-off requiring over

50% of the popular vote (an idea which not even proponents of a direct election seem to advocate).

Opponents of the Electoral College system also point to the risk of so-called

“faithless” electors . A “faithless Elector” is one who is pledged to vote for his party’s candidate for president but nevertheless votes for another candidate. There have been 7 such Electors in this century and as recently as 1988 when a Democrat

Elector in the State of West Virginia cast his votes for Lloyd Bentsen for president and Michael Dukakis for vice president instead of the other way around. Faithless

Electors have never changed the outcome of an election, though, simply because most often their purpose is to make a statement rather than make a difference.

That is to say, when the electoral vote outcome is so obviously going to be for one candidate or the other, an occasional Elector casts a vote for some personal favorite knowing full well that it will not make a difference in the result. Still, if the prospect of a faithless Elector is so fearsome as to warrant a Constitutional amendment, then it is possible to solve the problem without abolishing the

Electoral College merely by eliminating the individual Electors in favor of a purely mathematical process (since the individual Electors are no longer essential to its operation).

Opponents of the Electoral College are further concerned about its possible role

in depressing voter turnout. Their argument is that, since each State is entitled to the same number of electoral votes regardless of its voter turnout, there is no incentive in the States to encourage voter participation. Indeed, there may even be an incentive to discourage participation (and they often cite the South here) so as to enable a minority of citizens to decide the electoral vote for the whole State.

While this argument has a certain surface plausibility, it fails to account for the fact that presidential elections do not occur in a vacuum. States also conduct other elections (for U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, State Governors, State legislators, and a host of local officials) in which these same incentives and disincentives are likely to operate, if at all, with an even greater force. It is hard to imagine what counter-incentive would be created by eliminating the Electoral College.

Finally, some opponents of the Electoral College point out, quite correctly, its failure to accurately reflect the national popular will in at least two respects.

First, the distribution of Electoral votes in the College tends to over-represent people in rural States. This is because the number of Electors for each State is determined by the number of members it has in the House (which more or less reflects the

State’s population size) plus the number of members it has in the Senate (which is always two regardless of the State’s population). The result is that in 1988, for


Background Information example, the combined voting age population (3,119,000) of the seven least populous jurisdictions of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, North Dakota,

South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming carried the same voting strength in the

Electoral College (21 Electoral votes) as the 9,614,000 persons of voting age in the

State of Florida. Each Floridian’s potential vote, then, carried about one third the weight of a potential vote in the other States listed.

A second way in which the Electoral College fails to accurately reflect the national popular will stems primarily from the winner-take-all mechanism whereby the presidential candidate who wins the most popular votes in the State wins all the

Electoral votes of that State. One effect of this mechanism is to make it extremely difficult for third-party or independent candidates ever to make much of a showing in the Electoral College. If, for example, a third-party or independent candidate were to win the support of even as many as 25% of the voters nationwide, he might still end up with no Electoral College votes at all unless he won a plurality of votes in at least one State. And even if he managed to win a few States, his support elsewhere would not be reflected. By thus failing to accurately reflect the national popular will, the argument goes, the Electoral College reinforces a twoparty system, discourages third-party or independent candidates, and thereby tends to restrict choices available to the electorate.

In response to these arguments, proponents of the Electoral College point out that it was never intended to reflect the national popular will. As for the first issue, that the Electoral College over-represents rural populations, proponents respond that the United States Senate—with two seats per State regardless of its population— over-represents rural populations far more dramatically. But since there have been no serious proposals to abolish the United States Senate on these grounds, why should such an argument be used to abolish the lesser case of the Electoral

College? Because the presidency represents the whole country? But so, as an institution, does the United States Senate.

As for the second issue of the Electoral College’s role in reinforcing a two-party system, proponents, as we shall see, find this to be a positive virtue.

Arguments for the Electoral College

Proponents of the Electoral College system normally defend it on the philosophical grounds that it:

• contributes to the cohesiveness of the country by requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected president,

• enhances the status of minority interests,

• contributes to the political stability of the nation by encouraging a twoparty system, and

• maintains a federal system of government and representation.



Recognizing the strong regional interests and loyalties which have played so great a role in American history, proponents argue that the Electoral College system contributes to the cohesiveness of the country by requiring a distribution of

popular support to be elected president. Without such a mechanism, they point out, presidents would be selected either through the domination of one populous region over the others or through the domination of large metropolitan areas over the rural ones. Indeed, it is principally because of the Electoral College that presidential nominees are inclined to select vice presidential running mates from a region other than their own. For as things stand now, no one region contains the absolute majority (270) of electoral votes required to elect a president. Thus, there is an incentive for presidential candidates to pull together coalitions of

States and regions rather than to exacerbate regional differences. Such a unifying mechanism seems especially prudent in view of the severe regional problems that have typically plagued geographically large nations such as China, India, the Soviet Union, and even, in its time, the Roman Empire.

This unifying mechanism does not, however, come without a small price. And the price is that in very close popular elections, it is possible that the candidate who wins a slight majority or popular votes may not be the one elected president— depending (as in 1888) on whether his popularity is concentrated in a few States or whether it is more evenly distributed across the States. Yet this is less of a problem than it seems since, as a practical matter, the popular difference between the two candidates would likely be so small that either candidate could govern effectively.

Proponents thus believe that the practical value of requiring a distribution of popular support outweighs whatever sentimental value may attach to obtaining a bare majority of popular support. Indeed, they point out that the Electoral College system is designed to work in a rational series of defaults: if, in the first instance, a candidate receives a substantial majority of the popular vote, then that candidate is virtually certain to win enough electoral votes to be elected president; in the event that the popular vote is extremely close, then the election defaults to that candidate with the best distribution of popular votes (as evidenced by obtaining the absolute majority of electoral votes); in the event the country is so divided that no one obtains an absolute majority of electoral votes, then the choice of president defaults to the States in the U.S. House of Representatives. One way or another, then, the winning candidate must demonstrate both a sufficient popular support to govern as well as a sufficient distribution of that support to govern.

Proponents also point out that, far from diminishing minority interests by depressing voter participation, the Electoral College actually enhances the status of minority

groups. This is so because the votes of even small minorities in a State may make the difference between winning all of that State’s electoral votes or none of that State’s electoral votes. And since ethnic minority groups in the United States happen to concentrate in those States with the most electoral votes, they assume an importance to presidential candidates well out of proportion to their number.

The same principle applies to other special interest groups such as labor unions, farmers, environmentalists, and so forth.



It is because of this “leverage effect” that the presidency, as an institution, tends to be more sensitive to ethnic minority and other special interest groups than does the Congress as an institution. Changing to a direct election of the president would therefore actually damage minority interests since their votes would be overwhelmed by a national popular majority.

Proponents further argue that the Electoral College contributes to the political stability of the nation by encouraging a two-party system . There can be no doubt that the Electoral College has encouraged and helps to maintain a two-party system in the United States. This is true simply because it is extremely difficult for a new or minor party to win enough popular votes in enough States to have a chance of winning the presidency. Even if they won enough electoral votes to force the decision into the U.S. House of Representatives, they would still have to have a majority of over half the State delegations in order to elect their candidate—and in that case, they would hardly be considered a minor party.

In addition to protecting the presidency from impassioned but transitory third party movements, the practical effect of the Electoral College (along with the singlemember district system of representation in the Congress) is to virtually force third party movements into one of the two major political parties. Conversely, the major parties have every incentive to absorb minor party movements in their continual attempt to win popular majorities in the States. In this process of assimilation, third party movements are obliged to compromise their more radical views if they hope to attain any of their more generally acceptable objectives. Thus we end up with two large, pragmatic political parties which tend to the center of public opinion rather than dozens of smaller political parties catering to divergent and sometimes extremist views. In other words, such a system forces political coalitions to occur within the political parties rather than within the government.

A direct popular election of the president would likely have the opposite effect.

For in a direct popular election, there would be every incentive for a multitude of minor parties to form in an attempt to prevent whatever popular majority might be necessary to elect a president. The surviving candidates would thus be drawn to the regionalist or extremist views represented by these parties in hopes of winning the run-off election.

The result of a direct popular election for president, then, would likely be a frayed and unstable political system characterized by a multitude of political parties and by more radical changes in policies from one administration to the next. The

Electoral College system, in contrast, encourages political parties to coalesce divergent interests into two sets of coherent alternatives. Such an organization of social conflict and political debate contributes to the political stability of the nation.

Finally, its proponents argue quite correctly that the Electoral College maintains

a federal system of government and representation. Their reasoning is that in a formal federal structure, important political powers are reserved to the component

States. In the United States, for example, the House of Representatives was


Background Information designed to represent the States according to the size of their population. The

States are even responsible for drawing the district lines for their House seats. The

Senate was designed to represent each state equally regardless of its population.

And the Electoral College was designed to represent each State’s choice for the presidency (with the number of each State’s electoral votes being the number of its Senators plus the number of its Representatives). To abolish the Electoral

College in favor of a nationwide popular election for president would strike at the very heart of the federal structure laid out in our Constitution and would lead to the nationalization of our central government—to the detriment of the States.

Indeed, if we become obsessed with government by popular majority as the only consideration, should we not then abolish the Senate which represents States regardless of population? Should we not correct the minor distortions in the House

(caused by districting and by guaranteeing each State at least one Representative) by changing it to a system of proportional representation? This would accomplish

“government by popular majority” and guarantee the representation of minority parties, but it would also demolish our federal system of government. If there are reasons to maintain State representation in the Senate and House as they exist today, then surely these same reasons apply to the choice of president. Why, then, apply a sentimental attachment to popular majorities only to the Electoral

College?

The fact is, they argue, that the original design of our federal system of government was thoroughly and wisely debated by the Founding Fathers. State viewpoints, they decided, are more important than political minority viewpoints. And the collective opinion of the individual State populations is more important than the opinion of the national population taken as a whole. Nor should we tamper with the careful balance of power between the national and State governments which the Founding Fathers intended and which is reflected in the Electoral College. To do so would fundamentally alter the nature of our government and might well bring about consequences that even the reformers would come to regret.

Conclusion

The Electoral College has performed its function for over 200 years (and in over 50 presidential elections) by ensuring that the President of the United States has both sufficient popular support to govern and that his popular support is sufficiently distributed throughout the country to enable him to govern effectively.

Although there were a few anomalies in its early history, none have occurred in the past century. Proposals to abolish the Electoral College, though frequently put forward, have failed largely because the alternatives to it appear more problematic than is the College itself.

The fact that the Electoral College was originally designed to solve one set of problems but today serves to solve an entirely different set of problems is a tribute to the genius of the Founding Fathers.



a selected bibliography on the electoral college

Highly Recommended

Berns, Walter (ed.). After the People Vote: Steps in Choosing the President.

Washington: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1983.

Bickel, Alexander M. Reform and Continuity. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections (2nd ed.) Washington, D.C.:

Congressional Quarterly, 1985.

Schlesinger, Arthur M.Jr.(ed.) History of Presidential Elections 1789-1968. New

York:Chelsea House Publishers, 1971

Other Sources

American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Proposals for Revision of the Electoral College System. Washington: 1969.

Best, Judith. The Case Against the Direct Election of the President. Ithica: Cornell

University Press, 1975.

Longley, Lawrence D. The Politics of Electoral College Reform. New Haven: Yale


Pierce, Neal R. and Longley, Lawrence D. The People’s President: The Electoral

College in American History and the Direct-Vote Alternative. New Haven: Yale


Sayre, Wallace Stanley. Voting for President. Washington: Brookings Institution, c1970.

Zeidenstein, Harvey G. Direct Election of the President. Lexington, Mass:

Lexington Books, 1973.

Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia: http://ap.grolier.com

Attachments 1-4 are exercises created to test student knowledge and understanding of the electoral college process. The exercises are based on lessons from

“Understanding the Electoral College” by Sharon R. Riggs.


table: how Many electors are there?

Attachment 6

Below is a table showing the number of members each state has in the United

States House of Representatives. Figure out how many electors each state has and write your answers in the table. After completing this task, you will discover that three electoral votes are still unaccounted for. List where these electoral votes come from on the lines below the table (Key on page 57).

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

STATES

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

D.C.

Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

3

2

13

3

1

3

4

9

8

10

15

8

7

2

4

6

9

5

2

19

1

25

13

2

5

1

53

7

8

4

7

1

3

1

11

9

6

1

9

32

3

8

1

5

5

19

2

29

13

1

18

MEMBERS OF HOUSE TOTAL ELECTORS


Attachment 7

chronological arrangeMent of the electoral college procedure

The presidential election process is composed of various events. To understand this process it is essential to know the sequence of events that take place. Arrange the events listed below in chronological order (beginning with one and ending with eight), by placing the proper number in the blank space beside each statement

(Key on page 58).

�� If there is not an absolute majority of electoral votes for president, the

U.S. House of Representatives selects the president.

�� After the major party caucuses and primaries have been held, the major parties nominate their candidates for president and vice president in their national conventions.

�� U.S. citizens cast their ballots for electors from their respective states to vote for President.

�� Presidential electors cast their votes for President.

�� State electors meet in their respective state capitals to cast their electoral votes.

�� Each state is allocated a number of electors equal to the number of its

U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives.

�� The President of the U.S. Senate reads the electoral votes from each state before both houses of the Congress.

�� The duly elected president and vice president are sworn into office.


Attachment 8

election dates exercise

Listed below are dates of various events that take place during the presidential election. In the space provided, write down the actual event(s) that take place on that date (Key on page 58).

The Tuesday following the first Monday in November in years divisible by four

��

��

��

The Monday following the second Wednesday of December

��

��

��

January 6

��

��

��

January 20

��

��

��


Attachment 9

electoral college procedures exercise

For students to fully understand the Electoral College procedures have the entire class perform the following activities. The electoral votes for each state can be found on Attachment 1 (Key on page 58).

1. Divide the class into groups.

2. Have each group represent a state.

3. Conduct a mock election between two candidates, issues, etc.

4. Tally the votes on a state-for-state basis for each candidate/issue.

5. Determine what candidate/issue wins the electoral votes for the state.

6. Add all of the electoral votes to determine what candidate/issue wins the election.

7. Reconstruct the election so that a tie occurs. Reconstruct it again so that the candidate/issue receives a minority of the popular vote and a majority of the electoral votes.

Below is an example of how these activities could be performed using a chalkboard, transparencies, handouts, etc.

States

California

Electoral

Votes

55

Total

Votes

Cast for

Electors

7

Candidate a Popular

Votes

3

Candidate

B Popular

Votes

4

Candidate a Electoral

Votes

Candidate

B Electoral

Votes

Texas

Louisiana

34

9

7

7

5

7

2

0

Georgia

ToTaLS

15

113

7

28

6

21

1

7

How many states did Candidate A carry?

How many states did Candidate B carry?

How many electoral votes did Candidate A receive?

How many electoral votes did Candidate B receive?

How many electoral votes are needed to win the election?

Which candidate won according to the electoral college?


Key for Attachment 6

The following chart lists each state and its respective number of electors.

STaTE

NumbEr of

ElEcTorS 2005 STaTE

NumbEr of

ElEcTorS 2005

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

D.C.

Florida

Georga

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Lousiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

4

21

11

7

3

27

15

4

7

3

55

9

9

3

10

6

10

12

17

10

6

8

9

4

6

11

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

8

3

21

4

7

7

3

20

15

5

31

15

4

4

3

5

13

11

5

10

3

5

3

11

34

The three electoral college votes unaccounted for come from the District of

Columbia.


Key for Attachment 7-9

the answers for attachMent 2 are as follows:

7, 2, 3, 5, 4, 1, 6, 8

the answers for attachMent 8 are listed below:

The Tuesday following the first Monday in November in years divisible by four.

The people in each state cast their ballots for the party slate of electors representing their choice for president and vice president.

The Monday following the second Wednesday of December.

State electors meet in their respective state capitals and cast their electoral votes.

January 6

The President of the Senate opens and reads the electoral votes cast from each state before both houses of the Congress.

January 20

The duly elected president and vice president are sworn into office.

listed below are the answers for attachMent 4:

How many states did Candidate A carry? 3

How many states did Candidate B carry? 1

How many electoral votes did Candidate A receive? 54

How many electoral votes did Candidate B receive? 54

How many electoral votes are needed to win the election? 1 more than half or 55

Which candidate won according to the electoral college? neither


Controversial Elections

(thoMas Jefferson - aaron burr)

In the 1800 Presidential election, the Democratic-Republicans ran Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr on their ballot. Jefferson and Burr won a clear majority of the national vote. All 73 Democratic-Republican members of the Electoral College voted faithfully, casting two votes each, one for Jefferson and one for Burr.

Before the 12th Amendment, Electors cast two votes for their party without specifying one as being for the President and the other as being for the Vice

President. Because of this, Jefferson and Burr received exactly the same number of Electoral votes and the election was a tie.

Since there was no majority within the Electoral College, the decision was deferred to the House of Representatives, then controlled by the Federalist Party. Though

Jefferson was clearly the Democratic-Republican’s candidate for President, the

Federalist Party considered Burr to be less of an evil than Jefferson. They tried to rally support for Burr in place of Jefferson. Burr also refused to endorse Jefferson.

The House had difficulty coming to a majority and cast 36 separate votes within one week. Though the original election was in November, the final House vote, electing Jefferson as President, did not occur until February 7, 1800. Aaron Burr was appointed as Vice President.

This election prompted the passing of the 12th Amendment which introduced double balloting. The Electoral College now casts two separate votes, one for

President and one for Vice President.



1824

(John Q. adaMs - andrew Jackson)

This was the first election where the winner of the popular vote did not become the President.

Andrew Jackson won a slight plurality in the popular vote, leading John Quincy

Adams by 38,149 votes. Four candidates received Electoral votes, though none received enough to constitute a majority:

Andrew Jackson received 99 Electoral votes.

John Quincy Adams received 84 Electoral votes.

William H. Crawford received 41 Electoral votes.

Henry Clay received 37 Electoral votes.

Since there was no majority within the Electoral College, the decision was deferred to the House of Representatives. The House is only allowed to vote on the top three contenders from the Electoral College so Henry Clay was removed from the election.

Adams, who was Jackson’s most viable competition, sought Clay’s support, knowing it would bring him victory. As the vote neared, Clay worked hard rounding up support for Adams. He won over Western representatives whose states had voted solidly for Jackson and even promised the votes of his home state Kentucky, which had not cast a single popular vote for Adams. After more than a month of


Controversial Elections bargaining, John Quincy Adams took precisely the 13 states he needed to win,

Jackson won seven, and Crawford won four.

When Adams became President, he appointed Henry Clay as Secretary of State.

Many have suspected that the promise of the position was why Clay agreed to support Adams.

Jackson called the whole situation a “corrupt bargain” and spent the next four years campaigning on how the election was stolen from him.

Though Jackson did win the popular vote in 1824, not all states recorded a popular vote. In six of the 24 existing states, the Electoral College members were appointed by the State Legislature. These six states (NY, SC, GA, VT, LA, DE) comprised nearly

25% of the electorate.

The number of voters for each Electoral vote also varied considerably. There were more voters in Indiana, which carried 5 Electoral votes, than there were in Virginia, which carried 24 Electoral votes. More than three times as many people voted in

Ohio than in Virginia, yet Ohio only cast 16 electoral votes.

Some states were won with very high percentages; Jackson carried 98% of

Tennessee’s popular vote, Adams carried 94% of New Hampshire’s vote. Neither candidate had national appeal and both were absent on the ballot in at least one state.

Despite these variations in representation, Jackson’s 4-year campaign highlighting the unfairness was successful. He won the Presidency in 1828, presenting himself as a man of the people, not the government.



1836

(Van buren - richard Johnson)

In the 1836 election, the Democratic-Republican’s Presidential candidate, Martin

Van Buren, won both the popular vote and the electoral vote.

His main competition was the Whig Party. The Whigs hoped to expose the design of the Electoral College by running several different candidates in different areas, picking individuals with a great deal of regional appeal.

The Whigs hoped to win a party majority throughout the country with this method, which would then allow them to choose the individual they wished to become

President.

They were unsuccessful and Martin Van Buren won the election with nearly 60% of the Electoral votes, though his popular vote lead was just over 50%. His running mate, Richard M. Johnson, did not fare so well. Upon hearing the allegation that

Johnson had children with an African-American woman, the 23 Democratic-

Republican Electors of Virginia refused to give him their votes.

Without those 23 votes, Johnson did not receive a majority vote within the Electoral

College. The decision was deferred to the Senate where Johnson was finally elected by a majority vote as the new Vice President.



1872

(greeley - grant)

Horace Greeley established the Liberal Republicans (or Democrats) in protest of incumbent Ulysses S. Grant. Greeley ran against Grant in the 1872 Presidential election.

Though few took Greeley seriously at first, he gained support throughout the campaign and eventually gathered 40% of the popular vote, only 800,000 less than Grant.

Greeley received a total of 2.8 million votes and would have received 86 Electoral votes had he not died on November 29, after the general election but before the

Electoral College convened to cast their votes.

With no precedent to guide them, Greeley’s Electors split the 84 votes among four minor candidates. Grant had already won an absolute majority of the Electoral votes so the result of the election was not affected. However, history was slightly skewed because Grant is credited with defeating Greeley, 286-0.



1876

(tilden - hayes)

One of the most controversial Presidential elections was between Samuel Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes.

Tilden, a Democrat, won the popular vote by nearly 250,000 votes, over 3%. On the night of the election, both candidates, as well as most of the National media, assumed Tilden was the winner. However, some Republicans were not willing to give up so easily.

The candidate’s Electoral votes were close and the Republicans contested 20 of them, including 4 from Florida, 8 from Louisiana, 7 from South Carolina, and 1 from

Oregon.

Out of these 20 Electoral votes, Tilden only needed 1 to win the election. Hayes needed all 20.

Without any precedent for this many contested Electoral votes, both parties agreed to set up a 15 person commission to study the contested votes and to impartially decide whom each vote should go to.

The commission was made up of 5 Senators, 5 members of Congress, and 5 Supreme

Court Justices. It was originally set up to include 7 Democrats, 7 Republicans, and one independent who was expected to be unbiased and nonpartisan.

At this time, the Republicans controlled the Senate and the Democrats controlled


Controversial Elections the House. Both parties agreed that the findings of the commission would be upheld unless overruled by both the House and the Senate.

When the independent who was supposed to serve on the commission was elected as a Senator, he resigned his position on the commission and was replaced by a

Republican. The commission now had 8 Republicans and 7 Democrats.

Over a series of discussions, the commission voted along party lines and awarded all 20 votes to Samuel Hayes, the Republican candidate. Each vote was 8-7, with the Republican majority controlling the decision. Every decision of the commission was contested by the Democratic House but was upheld by the Republican

Senate.

The Democrats threatened to filibuster but eventually agreed to a resolution that

Hayes would withdraw federal troops from the South, ending reconstruction and the enforcement of equal voting rights for blacks.

This election was clearly corrupted and has found a place in every debate over the Electoral College since.

For a more complete analysis and timeline of the 1876 election, see the special website designed by Harper’s Weekly.



1888

(harrison - cleVeland)

1888 was another election where the winner of the popular vote did not become

President.

Democratic incumbent Grover Cleveland had won the popular vote by a margin of 0.8% (90,596 out of 11,383,320 votes). Despite this slim popular victory, Republican

Benjamin Harrison won the Electoral College majority (233 out of 401 votes).

Harrison won the Electoral College without the popular vote by winning slim majorities in his winning states and suffering considerable losses in his losing states.

Six Southern states favored Cleveland by more than 65%.

The reason for this split was the issue of tariffs. The South strongly favored lowering of the tariff. The Republicans approved of high tariffs and were unpopular in the

South. Tariff reform gave Cleveland immense support in the Southern states, but the South alone was not enough to win the election.

When elected in 1884, Cleveland was the first Democrat elected since before the

Civil War. He came back to challenge and defeat Harrison in 1892.



2000

(bush - gore)

The 2000 Presidential Election was the most recent election where the popular vote winner was not elected. George W. Bush, son of former President George

H.W. Bush, ran on the Republican ticket against Democratic candidate, and the sitting Vice President, Al Gore.

Though Gore held a slim popular vote victory of 543,895 (0.5%), Bush won the

Electoral College 271-266, with one Gore Elector abstaining.

The election was plagued with allegations of voter fraud and disenfranchisement.

Rumors of illegal road blocks, unclear ballots, and uncounted votes, particularly in swing states like Missouri and Florida, were rampant.

Florida became the key state as the election drew to a close. Consisting of nearly

6 million voters, Florida was officially won by a margin of 537 votes, after a process of recounting the votes and a Supreme Court ruling.

Voters complained about confusing ballots and many Florida voters believed that they accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan, a conservative running on the Reform ticket, when they meant to vote for Al Gore.

Another significant candidate in the 2000 election was Green Party candidate,

Ralph Nader. Nader attracted just under 3% of voters with a progressive platform


Controversial Elections focused on social and environmental issues.

Democratic supporters targeted Nader as being a “spoiler” for Al Gore. Since

Nader was left-of-center, Democrats argued that most of his voters would have otherwise supported Gore. In such a close election, many believe that Gore would have won if Nader had dropped out of the race.

The 2000 election resulted in numerous court battles over contested ballots and recounts. These lawsuits escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court where the final, 5-4 decision was made, ending the recounts and giving the state of Florida’s Electoral votes to George W. Bush.

In the end, Gore conceded the election publicly, though he did not hide his displeasure at the Supreme Court’s ruling.


Fun History Facts

Basic Facts about Election 2000:

Election 2000 was the 54th presidential election.

Election 2000 was the 24th “open” presidential election (no incumbent president is in the race). 1988 was the last open presidential race.

With Bush’s win in the 2000 contest, Republicans have won 12 of 24 open presidential elections, and Democrats have won six. (Six open elections took place in the 1700s and 1800s, prior to the creation of the Democratic and Republican parties.)

Four people have lost a presidential general election and gone on to win the

White House in later years:

• Thomas Jefferson lost in 1796, but won in 1800 and 1804

• Andrew Jackson lost in 1824 but won in 1828 and 1832

• Grover Cleveland won in 1884, lost in 1888, and won 1892

• Richard Nixon lost in 1960, but won in 1968 and 1972

The only other incumbent Democratic vice president who lost a presidential general election, Hubert Humphrey, failed to win his party’s nomination when he ran again for president in 1972 and 1976.

On the other hand, two of the three vice-presidents who ran for president after leaving office ended up winning their party’s presidential nomination: Nixon in

1968 and Mondale in 1984. (Nixon went on to win the presidency, Mondale did not.) Humphrey failed to win his party’s nomination in 1972 and 1976.

Only 5 others have been elected president without winning California (since it became a state in 1852). California has the largest number of electoral votes.

• 1880 - Garfield

• 1884 - Cleveland

• 1912 - Wilson

• 1960 - Kennedy

• 1976 - Carter

The 10 vice presidents to seek and fail to win the presidency since 1900:

• Thomas Marshall, Wilson’s VP, failed to win the Democratic nomination in

1920

• Charles G. Dawes, Coolidge’s VP, failed to win the Democratic nomination in 1928 and 1932

• John Nance Garner, FDR’s VP, failed to win the Democratic nomination in

1940

• Henry Wallace, FDR’s VP, was the Progressive Party nominee in 1948

• Alben Barkley, Truman’s VP, failed to win the Democratic nomination in

1952

• Richard Nixon, Eisenhower’s VP, lost the 1960 general election


Fun History Facts

• Hubert Humphrey, Johnson’s VP, lost 1968 general election and failed to win the Dem nomination in 1972 and 1976

• Walter Mondale, Carter’s VP, lost the 1984 general election

• Dan Quayle, Bush’s VP, failed to win the Republican nomination in 2000

• Al Gore, Clinton’s VP, lost the 2000 general election

4 sitting vice presidents have won their party’s nomination for President since

1900:

• Richard Nixon - lost the general election in 1960, but won in 1968 and 1972

• Hubert Humphrey - lost general election in 1968

• George Bush Sr. - won general election in 1988

• Al Gore - lost general election in 2000


Fun History Facts

All over the world, people do not have the same rights that we enjoy as Americans.

Many people in other countries just recently, as recently as 2005, are gaining the right to vote. Take for instance Iraq, where we witnessed the stirring sight of millions of Iraqis holding their ink-stained fingers in the air as they cast their vote. In Iraq, voters risked bombs and guns to achieve a 61% turnout. In the nation where modern democracy was born, we get excited when over half of voters go to the polls. Ask yourself – is that something to be proud of?

In the Spring, the Office of the Secretary of State mails a congratulatory card to seniors graduating from all Texas High Schools, which includes a personal message from the Secretary, along with a voter registration application, encouraging Texas youth to get involved in the electoral process.

It is imperative to get involved in the electoral process if you want to make a difference. But, in order to participate in the democratic process, you must register to vote. If you are 17 years old, and 10 months, you are eligible to register to vote. Come on, make a difference, REGISTER and VOTE.


High School-United States Government

I Was a Teenage LobbyIsT

Voter registration application-english

Texas

1 These Questions Must Be Completed Before Proceeding

Voter registration application-english

BUSINESS REPLY MAIL

REGISTRAR OF VOTERS

Voter registration application-spanish

Voter registration application-spanish

BUSINESS REPLY MAIL

REGISTRAR OF VOTERS

application for early Voting by Mail ballot

application for a place on the ballot

crossword puzzle #1

word list

crossword puzzle #2 word list

crossword puzzle #3

word list

solution to crossword puzzle #1

solution to crossword puzzle #2

solution to crossword puzzle #3

Distribution of Electoral Votes

Total Electoral Vote = 538 Needed to Elect = 270

the pro’s and con’s of the electoral college systeM

a selected bibliography on the electoral college

table: how Many electors are there?

chronological arrangeMent of the electoral college procedure

election dates exercise

electoral college procedures exercise

States

California

Electoral

Votes

55

Total

Votes

Cast for

Electors

7

Candidate a Popular

Votes

3

Candidate

B Popular

Votes

4

Candidate a Electoral

Votes

Candidate

B Electoral

Votes

Texas

Louisiana

34

9

7

7

5

7

2

0

Georgia

ToTaLS

15

113

7

28

6

21

1

7

STaTE

NumbEr of

ElEcTorS 2005 STaTE

NumbEr of

ElEcTorS 2005

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona