Photo credit: Al Behrman/AP
These people are voting in an election. While most U.S. leaders are chosen by a popular vote,
American presidents are not. They are selected by an electoral vote.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
(Achieve3000, April 6, 2012). In the United States, the people choose leaders by voting in elections, right? Actually, most U.S. leaders are elected directly by the people. But American presidents are chosen by an electoral vote. This is done through a group of people called electors. They are known as the Electoral
College. In each state, people vote for these electors. The electors then vote for the president. The candidate with the most votes from electors wins.
Who Are the Electors?
Electors are chosen by the political parties to select the president. Some people can't be electors. A president cannot be one. Neither can a U.S. senator or a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Why Are Electors Used?
Why use electors? Why not let people vote directly? The Founding Fathers could not agree on how the president should be chosen. Some of them felt that Congress should choose the president. This would have left most people out of the process, however. Others felt that the people should vote through a direct election. Some worried that this way might not work either. People might not have enough information to choose the best candidate. So the
Founding Fathers came up with the Electoral College.
How Does the Electoral College Work?
The number of electors each state has equals the number of senators and representatives the state has in Congress.
Take Pennsylvania, for example. In 2012, the state had two senators (like all states) and 19 representatives. That means it had 21 electors. That's 21 electoral votes.
In 48 states, whichever candidate wins a majority of the popular vote gets all the electoral votes for that state. This is called the "winner-takes-all" rule. Maine and Nebraska do not have this rule. In those states, electoral votes can be

split. One candidate can win some of the state's electors. The other candidate can win the rest.
If you watch the news on Election Day, you can add up who is winning. The states labeled "blue" have been won by the candidate from the Democratic Party. Those labeled "red" have been won by the Republican candidate. Seeing more of one color than the other might not show who is winning. Remember: some states have more electoral votes.
Winning a lot of states that have only a few electoral votes might not lead to victory. Watch the total number of electoral votes each candidate has. Remember that votes on the West Coast and Hawaii will come in later than those on the East Coast. They are in different time zones.
There are a total of 538 electoral votes cast in the election for president. (That's one for each of the 535 senators and representatives. There are also three for Washington, D.C.) The candidate who receives at least 270 electoral votes wins the election.
Which Counts More—the Electoral or Popular Vote?
In most elections, the candidate with the most votes from the people wins the election. In other words, the winner of the popular vote is also the winner of the electoral vote.
That's not always the case, however. The 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore is an example. When the popular vote was counted, Gore had more votes nationwide than Bush. However, some thought there were errors in Florida's vote count. The U.S. Supreme Court, said Bush won the state by 537 popular votes.
Florida has the "winner-takes-all" rule. Bush received all of Florida's electoral votes. This brought his electoral vote total to 271. Gore won the popular vote. Yet Bush won the electoral vote—and the election.
How much of a difference will your state's electoral votes make? If your state has a lot of votes, it's more likely to make a difference. However, even a small state can change an election!
In the United States, presidential elections are complex processes. Elections start long before Election Day, but the short period between naming the candidates (in late August or early September) and the election (in early
November) is critical. During that time, the campaigns kick into high gear.
The ultimate goal for each party is winning the popular vote. In most cases, this will result in an electoral victory.
The United States is a large country, and the money set aside to pay for a campaign must be used carefully. Where should a candidate focus the most time and resources in the final weeks before an election?
Based on history and on the results of the primary elections in the spring, most states clearly support one political party. Therefore, the Democratic candidate, for example, will not spend time campaigning in a heavily Democratic state. The Republican candidate will not focus attention on a heavily Republican state. Similarly, neither candidate will spend time nor money campaigning in a state that is securely in the opponent's win column.
In many elections, the outcome is determined by which candidate wins the "swing states." Swing states do not favor one particular political party. This means their electoral votes are up for grabs. These are the states on which candidates focus the most attention. Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan are historically swing states. Still, this can change. So the battleground may shift from one election to the next.
In 2012, eight swing states were considered significant determiners of the outcome of the election. These were Ohio,
Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. The reasons varied from historical patterns to current concerns. Some were traditionally swing states. In others, voters were undecided because of economic issues. Five of the eight states had higher unemployment rates in 2012 than in 2009, when the Democratic

incumbent Barack Obama took office. Would this fact give the Republican challenger Mitt Romney an advantage?
The campaign strategies came down to two factors. One was history (how these states had voted in previous elections). The other was math (how many electoral votes were at stake). Florida and Ohio had supported the
Democratic candidate in 2008 and the Republican candidate in 2004 by very slight margins. Still, these are "winnertakes-all" states. This means even a small margin awards all of the electoral votes to the winning candidate.
In 2012, the number of electoral votes in the swing states was the key factor. Without the swing states, Obama had
237 electoral votes and Romney had 190. To achieve the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election, experts calculated the combinations of swing states that could provide victory for their candidate. Several outcomes were possible. Ohio, with its 18 electoral votes at stake, became the center of attention. With Ohio, Romney had a chance of winning; without it, his chances were slim. During the campaign, each candidate made more trips to Ohio than to any other state. There was even an appearance on Election Day for one last appeal to voters.
On November 6, 2012, Obama won all eight of the key swing states and was re-elected. Shortly thereafter, the process began again in preparation for the 2016 election.
controversy (noun) disagreement economic (adjective) having to do with business or money incumbent (noun) the person who currently holds an office tabulate (verb) to count and record
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1. The best alternate headline for this article would be __________.
The U.S. Presidential Election Process
The Election Day Schedule
The Rules for Presidential Candidates
The U.S. Political Parties
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2. What cause-and-effect relationship is described in this article?
Because the Supreme Court can overturn election results, the Justices on that court must
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 routinely review the results of presidential elections.
Because George W. Bush received the greatest number of popular votes in the 2000 election, he
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 went on to become the president of the U.S.
Because large states have more electoral votes than small states, presidential candidates do not
 need to campaign in small states.

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 Because there were contrasting ideas about how to best select the president, the Founding
Fathers came up with a compromise.
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3. Which is the closest synonym for the word controversy ?
Narrative
Agreement
Display
Debate
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4. Suppose Sierra wants to find out more about the Electoral College. She would find most of her information
__________.
On a TV news interview with the current president
In a novel about someone who is running for Congress
On a Web site about visiting Washington, D.C.
In a reference book on U.S. presidential elections
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5. Which of these statements is contrary to the ideas presented in this article?
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All U.S. elected officials are chosen by tallying the popular vote.
The number of electors each state has is the total number of its senators and representatives.
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Getting 270 electoral votes is enough to win the presidential election.
"Winner-takes-all" states give all electoral votes to the candidate with the most popular votes.
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6. The article states:
...There was a controversy in Florida over whether that state's vote count was accurate.
Look at the sentence above and think about the article. Which would be the closest synonym for the word accurate ?
Regarded
Popular
Correct
Permitted

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7. Which of these should not be included in a summary of this article?
In most states, the candidate who wins a majority of the popular vote gets all the electoral votes.
The number of representatives and senators for a state determines its number of electors.
The Founding Fathers set up the Electoral College as a way to select the U.S. president.
Al Gore received more popular votes than George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election.
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8. Which statement from the article best supports the notion that a person needs to watch election results carefully to get an accurate picture of who is winning?
The number of electors each state has is the sum of the number of senators and representatives
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 the state has in Congress.
Winning a lot of states that have only a few electoral votes will not necessarily lead to victory.
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 If you watch the news as the results come in on Election Day, you can tabulate who is winning the
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 various states.
Electors are people who have been chosen by the political parties in each state to select the
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 president.
9. In the reading, Florida is described as a swing state. Using your knowledge of the state of Florida, why do you believe Florida considered to be a major swing state in presidential elections?
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