The Electoral College
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The Electoral College
After the two parties have held their conventions and nominated their candidates,
the real campaign begins. For about three
months, the candidates spend all their time
making their case to the American people.
This involves a lot of travel, and a lot of
time “on the stump,” which is to say giving
speeches at different locations. The
candidates must make decisions daily, and
toward the end by the hour, about which
states to visit and where to invest their
advertising dollars. To understand how a
campaign strategy is developed and how it
guides these decisions, you first have to
understand the Electoral College.
The Origin of the
Electoral College
The Electoral College is the institution
that officially elects the President of the
United States. In 1787, when the
Constitution was written, communications
between different parts of the country was
very slow. The Founding Fathers were
worried that no one man or group of men
would be sufficiently well known throughout the country to win a popular election
for president. It was decided instead that the people would elect a body called the
Electoral College, and that body of persons would choose the President. The
Founders imagined that candidates would run openly for the office of elector, and
that the voters would choose among the candidates as they would candidates for
the House or Senate. Whom do you trust to choose a President for you?
But in fact it has never worked like that. Everyone knew that the first president
was going to be George Washington, and so no one paid any attention to who the
electors were. Very quickly after that the American political party system began to
form. Ever since, each party has run “slates” of electors for its preferred candidate.
Electoral College Math
Here is how the Electoral College works: Each state receives a number of
electoral votes equal to the number of its seats in the House of
Representatives plus the number of its seats in the Senate. Since every state has
exactly two Senate seats, just add two to the number of House seats. In addition to
the fifty states, Washington D.C., a federal territory, gets 3. So:
Arkansas
California
South Dakota
House Seats
4
55
1
Senate Seats
2
2
2
Electoral Votes
6
57
3
To calculate the total for the Electoral College, you need to add the following:
U.S. House of Representatives
U.S. Senate
Washington D.C.
Total:
The minimum needed to win:
435
100
3
538
270
Under the rules of the Constitution, a candidate must win a majority in the
Electoral College to be elected President. Half of 538 is 269, so a candidate must
win 270 electoral votes or more. In the event that no candidate manages to win a
majority, the election will be decided by the U.S. House of Representatives. This
has happened once, very early.
Here is a graph illustrating the Electoral College outcome in the 2004 election.
Each square represents one electoral vote. Red squares are votes won by the
Republican candidate, Bush. Blue squares represent votes won by the Democrat,
John Kerry.
How Electoral Votes are Distributed after an
Election
Each state can devise its own system for distributing the electoral vote. In the first
few elections, many states let allowed the state legislature to decide with no
popular election at all. Today every state and Washington D.C. will hold an
election.
In most states the system in place is the called “Unit Rule,” or more commonly,
winner take all. Each candidate runs a slate of electors in a state equal to the
number of that state’s electoral vote. The slate is a list of persons pledged to vote
for that candidate. So John McCain’s slate in Arkansas will have six people who
are pledged to vote for him if he wins that state. Barack Obama will have his own
six pledged to vote for him.
Likewise, South Dakota will have a slate of three electors representing John
McCain, and another slate of three representing Barack Obama. There will be
additional slates for third party candidates. Who will these electors be? Party
officials or prominent supporters of the candidate, for the most part. When voters
go to the polls, they will not see the names of these electors. They will see only the
various tickets: McCain/Palin; Obama/Biden; etc. Once the popular vote has
been counted, meaning the actual votes cast, whichever ticket wins a plurality
gets all three of South Dakota’s electoral votes. Another way to put this is that the
slate pledged to vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in that state is
elected to the Electoral College. You can see the outcome in New Mexico in the
image on the right.
In 2008, John McCain/Sarah Palin won 203, 054 votes, just over 53% of the
popular vote. Barack Obama/Joe Biden received 170.924, almost 45%. The
Constitution Party came in third with fewer than 2000 votes. You can see above a
list of the electors pledged to vote for each candidate. Since McCain/Palin won
more popular votes than any other ticket, all three of McCain’s electors were
elected to the Electoral College. Here are their names:
Dennis M. Daugaard (Lt. Governor)
Larry Long (Attorney General)
Mike Rounds (Governor)
Obama/Biden also had three electors:
Gary Job
Catherine V. Piersol
Jack Billion
None of these made the Electoral College
In North Carolina, Obama/Biden beat McCain/Palin by about three tenths of one
percent of the popular vote a won only a plurality of the vote statewide. But the
Obama ticket got all 15 of that state’s electoral votes. That is “winner take all.”
Electoral College Outcomes vs. the Popular
Vote
Electoral College results, largely because of the winner take all rule in almost all
states, will differ significantly from the popular vote totals. Consider 1992
D
R
I
1992
Popular Vote
Bill Clinton/Al
Gore
George
Bush/Dan
Quayle
Ross
Perot/James
Stockdale
Percentage
Percentage
44,909,806 43.01%
Electoral
Vote
370
39,104,550
37.45%
168
31.2%
19,743,821
18.91%
0
0%
68.8%
So Democrat Bill Clinton won only 43% of the popular vote. George Bush (George
W.’s dad), won 37%. In that election, a third party candidate, Ross Perot, won
nearly 20% of the popular vote. But Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton won 370
electoral votes, for a strong majority in the Electoral College. And so Bill Clinton
became our 42nd President. The same thing happens again in 1996.
D
R
I
1996
Popular Vote
Percentage
Percentage
49.23%
Electoral
Vote
379
Bill Clinton/Al
Gore
Bob Dole/
Ross Perot/Pat
Choate
47,400,125
39,198,755
8,085,402
40.72%
8.40%
159
0
29.6%
0.0%
70.4%
Ross Perot’s support goes way down in 96, but it’s still eight million people, and
that’s enough to keep Bill Clinton from achieving a majority of popular support.
Both in 1992 and 1996, more people voted against Clinton than voted for him. Is
there anything wrong with that? It is not easy to see what.
It is very likely that the presence of Ross Perot in the race in 1992 cost George
Bush (41) the election. There is no way to prove that, but it seems likely that most
of the 20 million people who voted for him would have voted for Bush rather than
Clinton. Third party candidates cannot win presidential elections, but they can
sometimes decide them in favor of one party or the other.
Losing the Popular Vote but Winning the
Election
The Electoral College makes it possible for a candidate to lose a plurality of the
popular vote and still win the election. Although this is very rare, it happened in
2000.
2000
Popular Vote
Percentage
Percentage
47.87%
Electoral
Vote
271
George W.
Bush/Dick
Cheney
Al Gore/Joe
Lieberman
Ralph
Nader/Winona
La Duke
50,460,110
51,003,926
48.38%
266
49.4%
2,883,105
2.73%
0
0.0%
50.4%
Al Gore won 48.38% of the popular vote in that year, with George W. Bush
winning 47.87%. That’s a difference of less than one percent, but it still means
that more people voted for Gore than for Bush. But Bush put won just the right
collection of states to give him a very narrow victory in the Electoral College: 271 to
Gore’s 266. That’s how George W. made it to the White House. Is that unfair?
No. The rules are the rules. If you don’t like ‘em, work to get ‘em changed.
One thing about the 2000 election that was unprecedented is that the outcome
was not known for months. The two candidates were separated by a razor thin
margin in Florida. It took a series of decisions in the Florida State Supreme Court
and the United States Supreme Court to decide how the votes there would be
counted. Here is the official outcome.
2000 Florida
Results
George W.
Bush/Dick
Cheney
Al Gore/Joe
Lieberman
Ralph
Nader/Winona
La Duke
Popular Vote
Percentage
2,912,790
48.85%
Electoral
Vote
25
2,912,253
48.84%
0
97,488
1.63%
0
Would you just look at that! Out of nearly six million votes cast, George W. Bush
wins the popular vote in Florida by 537. A flu bug in the Florida panhandle would
have made Gore President. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that your vote doesn’t
matter.
Consider also South Dakota. Here is our vote in the same election.
2000 South Dakota
Results
George W.
Bush/Dick
Cheney
Al Gore/Joe
Lieberman
Popular Vote
Percentage
190,700
60.30%
Electoral
Vote
3
118,804
37.56%
0
Bush wins by a comfortable margin in South Dakota. But how comfortable was it?
Bush won by two electoral votes. South Dakota cast three electoral votes. If 15%
of South Dakota voters had gone the other way, Gore would have gone to the
White House rather than Bush.
Both Florida and South Dakota illustrate something vital about the Electoral
College: it makes states very important.