Making Votes Count : Strategic Coordination in the World's Electoral Systems National Conventions and Platforms of All Political Parties 1789-1905: Conventions, Popular, and Electoral Vote (American Classics in History and So) The National Conventions and Platforms of All Political Parties, 1789 to 1905: Convention, Popular and Electoral Vote, Also the Political Complexion The national conventions and platforms of all political parties, 1789 to 1900; convention, popular, and electoral vote, also, the political complexion of both Houses of Congress at each biennial period Proceedings of the Electoral Commission and of the two houses of Congress in joint meeting relative to the count of electoral votes cast December 6, 1876 for the Presidential term commencing March 4, 1877 After the People Vote: A Guide to the Electoral College Drawing the Map: Equality and Efficacy of the Vote in Canadian Electoral Boundary Reform (Research Studies, V. 11) How democracies vote : a study of electoral systems

• The Electoral College.
• How the Electoral College Works .
• The Distribution of Electoral College Votes amongst the States (1981-1990 and 1991-2000) .
• A Brief History of the Electoral College along with pro's and con's and a selected bibliography. ...
• For Electoral College and popular votes in past presedential elections, link to the Electoral College Home Page of the National Archives on http://www. ...

• The Electoral Vote Versus the Popular Vote.
• Looking at the transparency Electoral Versus Popular Vote, compare the result of the popular and electoral vote returns in recent presidential elections by answering the following questions. ...
• What is the largest gap between the winner and the loser of the electoral vote?.
• How do the percentages of popular vote compare with the percentages of electoral vote?.
• What do the results of these elections suggest about the relationship between the electoral and popular votes?.
• Why does it matter whether or not the electoral vote accurately reflects the popular vote?.

• Activity 18: The Electoral Vote vs. The Popular Vote.
•   In particular, we will look at the election of 1888, the last time prior to 2000 that one candidate (Benjamin Harrison) won the electoral vote, and another candidate (Grover Cleveland) won the popular vote.   It occurred two other times, in 1824, when no candidate received a majority of the electoral votes and John Quincy Adams was elected by the House, and in 1876, the election of Rutherford B. ...
•   It contains the popular vote by state in the 1888 election, whose main presidential candidates were Benjamin Harrison, the Republican candidate, and Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate.   It also contains the number of electoral votes for each state at that time. The number of electoral votes a state has is equal to the sum of the number of its representatives and the number of its senators, that is, 2 more than the number of representatives.   The number of representatives is roughly proportional to the population of the state, so it follows that the number of electoral votes is roughly proportional to the population of the state.   There are 538 total electoral votes, so 270 are needed to win the election. If a presidential candidate wins the popular vote in a given state, he receives all the electoral votes of that state. ...
•   How many percent of the popular vote did Harrison receive? How many percent did Cleveland? (You will need to sum columns. ...
• Now we wish to calculate the electoral votes each candidate received.   The rule is simple: if Cleveland's vote in a state is higher than Harrison's vote, then Cleveland gets all the electoral votes of that state. ...
• Using the IF command, add two columns to the table, one with the electoral vote for Harrison, the other with the electoral vote for Cleveland. Finally, add up the electoral votes for Harrison and and for Cleveland. ...   Harrison won, so Harrison's electoral votes better be greater than Cleveland's!.

• THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE.
• What is it?  When you cast your ballot for President, you are not actually voting for the president, you are casting a ballot for a group of 7 Electors who were chosen earlier by the political party of the candidate for whom you vote.   If your presidential candidate gets the majority of votes in Connecticut, your 7 Electors win and they will then go on to vote in the  Electoral College in Wash. ...
• How does Connecticut’s Electoral College work? In Connecticut, each state party names 7 Electors at their state convention. ... Whichever party wins the direct popular vote for President and Vice-President in Connecticut will determine which 7 Electors, Republican or Democrat, will vote in the Electoral College in December.   Following the December vote by the college electors, the cast ballots are sent to Washington, D. ... In order to win the election, a Presidential or Vice-Presidential candidate must receive a majority of the electoral votes, 270 out of a possible total of 538.   If no candidate wins an absolute majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives picks the President from the top 3 candidates with each state casting one vote. Similarly, the Vice-President would be chosen by the Senate from the top two candidates with each Senator having one vote. ...
• Do electors have to vote for the candidates for whom they have been chosen? With rare exceptions, yes. ...   In one third of the states, including Connecticut, laws bind electors to vote for candidates to whom they are pledged. ...
• Most states follow the winner-take-all system, which means the candidate that wins the most votes in a state gets all the electoral votes no matter how slim  the margin of victory. ...   Under this system, a presidential candidate receives an electoral vote for every Congressional District carried within that state, plus two more for the candidate receiving the largest number of popular votes in the state.   It is possible to win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote under both these systems.
• Is it possible for a candidate to win the popular vote in the states and to lose the election in the electoral college?  .
• The answer is yes -  in 1888, Benjamin Harrison won the election even though Grover Cleveland won the popular vote. ...

• Tracy Reid CIS 217 Test 3 Electoral and Popular Vote The Electoral College system works like this today. ... There is a direct vote election held in each state and the winner of the vote is supposed to get all of those states electoral votes. In 24 states, the electors are required to vote as pledged. ... The winner of every district gets one electoral vote, and the candidate with the most electoral votes gets the remaining two electoral votes. ... There each state is given one vote and they vote on the top three candidates. If a candidate gets a majority vote, then he/she becomes president. ... And court cases have named it constitutional for the states to require electors to vote one way or another according to their pledge (Glennon 137). Thus, an easier, but just as effective, method of change is called Allocating the Electoral Vote. In this method, the states hold a poplar election and the electoral votes are allocated by percentage. Thus if a state had ten electoral votes, and candidate A received 70% of the popular vote, and candidate B received 18% of the vote, and candidate C received 12% of the vote, then candidate A would receive seven electoral votes, B would get two electoral votes, and C would get one vote. In a worse case scenario, a president could be elected with a minimum of 42% of the popular vote.

• Electoral College Calculator.
• The President and Vice-President are elected by an "Electoral College", rather than by direct popular vote. Each state is allocated "electoral votes" equal to the total number of Senators and Representatives allocated to that state. The District of Columbia is also allocated 3 electoral votes. On election day, voters are actually voting for Electoral College members who promise to vote for the candidates of their respective political parties. In all but two states the party with the greatest number of votes receives all the electoral votes for that state, even if no candidate gets a majority. Nebraska and Maine allow their electoral votes to be split amoung candidates, but this has not actually happened in modern times. ...
• In order to win, a "ticket" (A party's Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates) must receive 270 votes, one more than half of the total of 538 electoral votes. ...
• The electoral system forces candidates to carefully allocate their time and money among the states. Each candidate must devise a campaigning strategy which gives him or her the best chance to win at least 270 electoral votes. ...
• To use the Electoral College calculator, select states by picking the state name on the list box, or clicking near the center of the state on the map. ...
• The Electoral College's Official web site is a must-read for anyone interested in the Electoral College. ...

• Electoral system should be changed.
• The framers of the Constitution preferred the electoral system to a direct popular election because, in the 18th century, travel was difficult and there were no national party organizations. They feared that many regional candidates would divide the vote. ...
• In 1988, the seven least populous jurisdictions had 21 electoral votes, the same as Florida. But Florida's population was three times that of those seven jurisdictions! An individual's vote has more weight if they live in a state with a small population. For example, each electoral vote in Alaska is equivalent to approximately 112,000 people. Each electoral vote in New York is equivalent to approximately 404,000 eligible people (based on 1990 census data). And that's if everyone votes! Also, a citizen's individual vote has more weight if the percentage of voter participation in the state is low. If only half of all people in Alaska vote, then each electoral vote is equal to roughly 56,000 people. Furthermore, the electoral vote does not reflect the volume of voter participation within a state. If only a few voters go to the polls, all the electoral votes of the state are still cast. ...
• The Electoral College system is also flawed because the constitution doesn't require the electors to vote for the candidates to whom they have been pledged. If their vote doesn't count, then why bother?.
• A president with a minority of the popular vote has won the Electoral College vote 15 times in U. ... history, most recently in 1992 and 1996, when Clinton won only 43 percent and 49 percent of the popular vote respectively. ... The Electoral College must go!.

• Political scientists: Electoral College imperfect but it isn't broke .
• LAWRENCE -- The Electoral College system of electing a U. ...
• Their study and conclusions appear in "Choosing a President: The Electoral College and Beyond," edited by Schumaker and Burdett Loomis, KU political scientist, and published by Chatham House. ...
• Schumaker says the book evolved as he and other political scientists were being bombarded with questions about the Electoral College system and alternative systems for selecting a president. ...
• Often voters are unaware that the vote each citizen casts in a general election is not for a candidate but for the electors who vote in the Electoral College. With the Electoral College, although there are exceptions because election rules vary by state, each state has a popular vote with the winner receiving all of that state's electoral votes, Schumaker says. ...
• The current system was criticized in 2000 because the popular vote winner did not win presidency. Schumaker says the study revealed a false argument against the Electoral College is that it does not represent the popular will. ...
• used a popular majority system, in which the winner must receive a majority of all votes cast, rather than the Electoral College in 2000. ...
• Supporters of other candidates, like Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan, might vote for Bush in the run-off election. ...
• The 37 political scientists conducting this study, including eight from KU, examined three alternatives to keep the Electoral College but alter it and three suggestions for abolishing the Electoral College. ...
• Because there is no consensus about a better alternative, the Electoral College system was viewed as acceptable. ...
• "I didn't think the Electoral College would get as much support as it did. But what I learned in the project was there are many valuable things about the Electoral College. ...
• Ideas explored for changing the Electoral College were .
•  • The District Plan that allows for electoral votes to be determined within the state's congressional districts rather than the present statewide winner takes all system. For example, if one district in Kansas had voted for the Gore and the others for Bush, then one of Kansas' six electoral votes would have been for Gore. ...

• Electoral College.
• The Electoral College and the Jews:  The Founding Fathers Must Have Meant Us .
•     Recently, the new Senator-elect from New York, Hillary Clinton, said that she would introduce a motion in the Senate to amend the Constitution so as to eliminate the electoral college, which is rooted in Article 2, Section 2, Clauses 2 and 3 and in the 12th Amendment. ...
• Bush really voted for an elector, say John Smith or Jane Brown, who had pledged in advance to vote for one of the candidates. ... Now the electors are chosen by popular vote. ...   On that day they vote for the candidate of their choice and report that vote to the President of the Senate who then opens the votes before a joint session of Congress. ...
•    The number of votes that each state can contribute to the electoral count is equal to the number of representatives each state sends to Congress. ...
•    California has 54 electoral votes. ... 1% of 18 million citizens, the Jewish vote is very significant. New York has 33 electoral votes.   Florida, with 25 electoral votes, has 637,000 Jews or 4. ... Other states with a good sized electoral vote and a significant Jewish population are New Jersey with 15 electoral votes and 465,000 Jews, constituting 5. 7 percent of the population of over 8 million, and Massachusetts, with 12 electoral votes and a Jewish population of 4. ...
• 6%, has 32 electoral votes. ...
• First, that we are concentrated is a few states with large electoral votes. Second, that we vote in larger numbers in proportion to our population than is true of the general public, third that we contribute more time, money and energy to political campaigns than our numbers warrant, and fourth, that we are disproportionately represented among elected officials. ...

• At present, Al Gore has 260 electoral votes and George W. ... Seven are in Oregon and that race has not yet been called and Florida’s 25 electoral votes hold the key to the presidency for the winner. In addition, one of Maine’s four electoral votes has not yet been decided. Under the rules of the Electoral College, only Maine and Nebraska are permitted to split their electoral votes based upon their congressional districts. This was the way that Ronald Reagan got 1 electoral vote in the 1976 presidential election between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.
• Bear in mind that these votes will affect only the spread of the electoral vote, and that is the vote that elects the President. Al Gore has won the popular vote, and no Bush surge can overcome that. ... This could be the first election in over 100 years where the one who won the popular vote still loses on account of the electoral vote. However, the Electoral College was put in place for among other reasons, to keep larger states from neutralizing the effect of the votes of the smaller states. Gore won the electoral vote-rich states of California (54), New York (33), Pennsylvania (23), Illinois (22) and Michigan (18). ...
• The fact of the matter is that Gore failed to carry his home state of Tennessee with its 11 electoral votes. Had he carried Tennessee, he would have 271 electoral votes, putting him over the top by one, and he would not be needing Florida in the current do-or-die contest both candidates now find themselves in.
• About an hour later, the vote in Florida was found to be less than 1000 votes separating Bush and Gore, so Gore, who had conceded over the phone to Bush, later retracted his concession, which made sense in this case. ...
• This is due entirely to the fact that a lot of folks out West, particularly in vote-rich California can lose their incentive to cast their vote if they see the closed polls in the East declaring a winner. ...
• This way, all voters would have an equal opportunity to have an impact on the national vote and the incentive to make it to the polls. ...
• So, while we have the chance of making history with the popular vote and the electoral vote producing different winners, we are a nation that lives by the rule of law - and that law (the Constitution) says the electoral vote is the one that counts.

• Shaffer 11/8/00 ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE? AIN'T GONNA' HAPPEN! After flirting with disaster several times since 1948, the nation has finally encountered the electoral calamity that many experts have dreaded. For the first time in over a century the Electoral College system has failed. Though it is likely that we will muddle through, with Democrats reluctantly accepting a George Bush victory despite their party's popular vote plurality, the calls for reform or abolition of the Electoral College are louder than in recent years. ... Would popular election require that the winner have a majority, or only a plurality, of the popular vote? If a majority, that would be almost impossible to achieve. Popular election would surely increase the number and activity of minor parties, now discouraged by a process which effectively denies them electoral votes. The result would be a badly split popular vote, far worse than that caused by Ross Perot in 1992. ... Birch Bayh proposed a constitutional amendment for a popular election several years ago, requiring a run-off if no candidate received 40% of the vote. ... 8% of the vote yet led his three challengers. ... " He won more than half of the electoral votes and became President, precipitating Southern secession and Civil War. Even if advocates of a direct popular vote can resolve this dilemma, amending the Constitution is no simple process. Any amendment opposed by more than one-fourth of the state legislatures will fail, and a direct election amendment will alienate all those small, western Republican states, whose influence would be considerably less in a popular vote than in the Electoral College system.

• Disqualify miscast electoral votes .
• Disqualify miscast electoral votes.
• If you care about democracy, get on the phone with your congressional representative and US senators right away! Tell them to disqualify the electoral votes from Florida, Texas, and Virginia. ...
• The electoral votes from Texas are all illegal. ...
• The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. ...
• The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age. ...
• (a) Failure or refusal to permit casting or tabulation of vote .
• No person acting under color of law shall fail or refuse to permit any person to vote who is entitled to vote under any provision of subchapters I-A to I-C of this chapter or is otherwise qualified to vote, or willfully fail or refuse to tabulate, count, and report such person's vote. ...
• No person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for voting or attempting to vote, or intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for urging or aiding any person to vote or attempt to vote, or intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for exercising any powers or duties under section 1973a(a), 1973d, 1973f, 1973g, 1973h, or 1973j(e) of this title. ...

• EC sets the record straight on alleged failures of the Electoral College system. ...
• A TV commentator writes his first novel -- about the Electoral College! .
• Electoral College .
• HOW CAN GORE WIN THE POPULAR VOTE AND LOSE THE ELECTORAL VOTE? .
• Blame careless political parties for electors who take their pledges too lightly and vote for someone else. ...
• ELECTORAL CALCULATOR .
• Plot your electoral college strategy with this calculator. ...
• Many people attack the Electoral College and few defend it. ...
• Here's the text of the failed constitutional amendment that would have replaced the Electoral College with a direct vote as low as 40% of the voters. ...

• Electoral College vs popular vote in 1824, 1876, and 1888.
• Electoral College critics point out the elections of 1824, 1876, and 1888 in their arguments to prove the system doesn't work. In those three elections the candidate who won the Electoral College vote, did not win the popular vote. Besides forgetting the 50 other elections where the Electoral College agrees with the popular vote, critics conveniently ignore the factors that caused these three situations. ...
• THE CRITICS CHARGE: In this election, critics point out that Andrew Jackson won both the electoral vote and the popular vote, but the House of Representatives circumvented the will of the people and chose John Quincy Adams as President. ...
• When the votes were counted, Jackson had won the most electoral and popular votes, but had failed to carry a majority of electoral votes. It fell upon the House of Representatives to choose the president from among the top three electoral vote getters: Jackson, Adams, and Crawford. With Clay throwing his support to Adams (who is rumored to have done so for a cabinet post), Adams carried the vote on the first ballot and was named President.
• WHY THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SHOULDN'T BE BLAMED: The critics ignore the fact that the popular vote was not a true indicator of the will of the people in 1824. In fact, popular vote totals weren't even kept for elections before this one. ... And six states didn't even have a public vote! Their legislatures chose the electors. This included New York, the largest state at the time, where Adams certainly would have been able to cut into or eliminate Jackson's popular vote lead. ...
• CONCLUSION: To say the Electoral College failed in 1824 is incorrect, because this was not a campaign where the candidates went after the popular vote; this campaign was fought for electoral votes. ...
• Hayes in the popular vote, he still lost by one electoral vote. ...
• He led the popular vote 51% to 48%, and led in the Electoral College vote 184-165 with 20 votes still undecided. Tilden only needed one vote to win; Hayes needed all 20. ... An Electoral Commission was set up by Congress, who awarded all 20 votes, and the presidency, to Hayes.

•   Active Items   Photographs & Negatives   1   Woman about to cast her electoral vote for the first time   1/2-C-016179. ...

• Electoral Vote Tie.
• It probably won't happen, but it's fun to speculate about what would happen if there was an electoral vote tie. ... That has fueled speculation that the Electoral College vote could end in a 269-269 vote tie. ...
• The Electoral College is made up of electors selected from each state on the basis of representation. ... Therefore, Texas has 32 electoral votes. ...
• It is possible that the vote could end in a tie. ... It would end in a 269-269 vote tie. ...
• What would happen next? According to the Constitution, the race would go to the House where each state delegation would get one vote. ... But again, what if some delegations did not vote along party lines? Could you get a 25-25 vote tie? That would certainly lead to some backroom deals and agonizing decisions. ...
• Another possiblity would be that the winner of the popular vote did not win the electoral vote. ... But Harrison was elected president because he got 65 more electoral votes. ...

• KIT SEELYE'S ELECTORAL QUAGMIRE: A couple of things don't make sense in Katharine Seelye's otherwise interesting look at recent changes in the national electoral map. ... would win seven more electoral votes than he won in 2000 if he won the exact same states in 2004, and since the states Al Gore won are the ones that suffered most of the population losses.
• But, in both cases, wouldn't the political effect depend on the types of voters states were adding or losing? Pennsylvania and New York both lost population as well electoral votes, while Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona gained both population and electoral votes. (A state need not actually lose population to lose electoral votes. ... Likewise, if the major source of population growth in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona is a group, say Hispanics (as Seelye acknowledges is the case), that tends to vote Democratic, then those states might actually be getting easier for a Democrat to win. ...
• Still, probably the strangest claim Seelye makes in the piece is the following: "It is clear the electoral change has hurt the Democrats more than Republicans. ... Gore won and usually vote Democratic. ... Indiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma each lost a vote, though the losses were thought less crucial since those states regularly vote Republican. ...
• Now either the population losses from states that usually vote Democratic hurt Democrats, or the losses from reliable Republican states aren't particularly costly for Republicans. That is, it's either a problem when states you usually carry lose electoral votes or its not. ...
• This creates a chink in her electoral analysis, to say the least, since there are a handful of states Gore wouldn't have lost if not for Nader's presence on the ballot (Florida comes to mind)--and a handful of others that wouldn't have been very close. It's probably safe to say that any advantage the electoral map has netted the president between 2000 and 2004 will be entirely overwhelmed by the absence of a Nader-like figure. ...

• Under the present Madisonian electoral college system, the candidate who gets the most votes in a given state wins all of that state's electoral votes: one vote for each US senator (two in all) and one vote for each US representative (i. ... , about one electoral vote for each 600,000 of population as determined by the most recent census. ... In 1888, for example, Benjamin Harrison was elected because he carried the five largest states, but by margins so small that Grover Cleveland's Texas landslide alone offset their total raw-vote effect. Nationally, Cleveland had a larger raw popular vote total, but lost. ... Whether cast for or against the winner (or not cast at all), no individual vote or small number of them could change the winner or the number of electoral votes awarded for the victory. This reduces the incentive to vote. ... Natapoff's MVP (maximum voting power) method, each state is assigned one electoral vote for each vote cast in it, plus a Senatorial fraction (2/436) of the total US voter turnout. In 1992, that popular- vote equivalent of two senators would have been 2/436 times 104. ... This additional allotment maintains the current ratio of size-based (Representative) to state-based (Senatorial) electoral votes. Thus, a voter who dislikes a candidate heavily favored in his state could cast a blank ballot, which would reduce his state's (and therefore the winning candidate's) national electoral vote by one. ... " That sensitivity, however, rewards successful vote-fraud handsomely, because there would be no limit to the possible advantage gained by stuffing a ballot box-the more votes cast in a state, the more electoral votes it is assigned.

• com ELECTORAL COLLEGE.
• There are a total of 538 electoral college votes, just like in U. ... 50% + one electoral vote (270 votes) clinches victory for a hair consultant candidate. In the event, that no one gains 270 votes, the candidate with the highest amount of electoral votes wins. ...
• A person may vote once within their electoral district. If a voter is qualified to be in more than one electoral district, Steve Garufi will decide which district fits that person best. ...
• A vote is counted when there is a clear, unmistakable expression of intent via e-mail, letter or verbal words. ...
• When a vote has been officially cast, the voter will usually receive some form of confirmation as Steve sees best. ...
• If for any reason Steve questions the authenticity of a vote or inquires about the identity of a voter, it is the voter's burden to satisfy the authenticity requirements of Steve. ...
• Home | Adventures | Literature | Music | Vote | Messages | Merchandise | Word Searches | News | Links .

• How the Electoral College .
• The system of the Electoral College was established in Article II, section I, of the U. ...
• citizens vote for President and Vice President every election year, they are actually electing a set of individual "Electors" to represent their state. The Electors from every state combine to form the Electoral College.
• Each political party with a candidate on the ballot designates their own set of Electors for each state, matching the number of Electors they appoint with the number of Electoral votes allotted to the state. ...
• Electors are typically strong supporters of the political party, but only 26 states require Electors to vote with the party they are pledged to. ...
• Senate opens all of the sealed envelopes containing the Electoral votes and reads them aloud. To be elected as President or Vice President, a candidate must have an absolute majority of the Electoral votes for that position.
• A majority is not guaranteed within the Electoral College. An election with no Electoral College majority could occur in two ways; if two candidates tie with 269 votes each or if three or more candidates receive Electoral votes.
• If no Presidential candidate obtains a majority of the Electoral votes, the decision is deferred to the U. ...
• Each state receives only one vote and an absolute majority of the states (26) is required to elect the President. ...
• Also, since every state only gets one vote, the Representatives from each state must come to a decision on which candidate to support. A state with an equal number of Representatives supporting the competing parties would not be able to cast its vote unless one Representative agreed to vote for the opposing side.
• If no Vice Presidential candidate obtains a majority of Electoral votes, the decision is deferred to the U. ...
• The Senate would then elect the Vice President, choosing between the two candidates receiving the highest number of Electoral votes for that office. ...

• The Framers' Electoral Wisdom .
• Political hypochondriacs again are urging Americans to fear and be offended by the system of choosing presidents by electoral votes. Criticism of this system recurs whenever a close contest poses the possibility that a candidate might win an electoral vote victory while receiving fewer popular votes than his opponent. ...
• Andrew Jackson received 38,149 more votes than John Quincy Adams, but neither received a majority of electoral votes. ...
• There never has been an Electoral College victory by a candidate who lost the popular vote by a substantial margin. And only simple-minded majoritarianism holds that "the nation's will" would be "frustrated" and democracy "subverted" (this is the language of Electoral College abolitionists) were an electoral vote majority to go to a candidate who comes in a close second in the popular vote count. ...
• The Electoral College has evolved, shaping and being shaped by the two-party system, which probably would not survive abandonment of winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes. Direct popular election of presidents, or proportional allocation of states' electoral votes, would incite minor parties to fractionate the electorate. This might necessitate runoff elections to guarantee that the eventual president got at least 40 percent of the vote--and runoffs might become auctions in which minor parties sold their support. ...
• The electoral vote system shapes the character of winning majorities. By avoiding proportional allocation of electoral votes, America's system--under which Ross Perot in 1992 got 19 percent of the popular votes and zero electoral votes--buttresses the dominance of two parties, and pulls them to the center, producing a temperate politics of coalitions rather than a proliferation of ideological factions with charismatic leaders. ...
• Furthermore, choosing presidents by electoral votes is an incentive for candidates to wage truly national campaigns, building majorities that are geographically as well as ideologically broad. Consider: Were it not for electoral votes allocated winner-take-all, would candidates campaign in, say, West Virginia? In 1996 Bill Clinton decisively defeated Bob Dole there 52 percent to 37 percent. ... However, for a 5-0 electoral vote sweep, West Virginia is worth a trip or two. ...
• Some Electoral College abolitionists argue that a candidate could get elected with just 27 percent of the popular vote--by winning the 11 largest states by just one vote in each, and not getting a single popular vote anywhere else. But it is equally pointless to worry that a candidate could carry Wyoming 220,000 to 0, could lose the other 49 states and the District of Columbia by an average of 4,400 votes, and be the popular vote winner while losing the electoral vote 535 to 3. ...

• Learn all you need to know about the Electoral College and Join the Debate! .
• Free poster offer! | Overview | Debate & Web Poll | Electoral College Strategies Activity.
• The Electoral College: An Overview .
• Electors are appointed by their political parties, in a manner prescribed by their state legislature, which empowers them to cast a vote for the president and vice president of the United States. ...
• On the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November in a presidential election year, eligible voters may, through their ballot, select the electors who are committed to cast their electoral votes for the candidate of the voter's choice. ... At this time, each elector shall cast their electoral vote. ...
• The presidential candidate who receives an absolute majority (one vote over 50%) of the electoral votes will serve as president of the United States. The vice presidential candidate who receives an absolute majority of the electoral votes will serve as vice president of the United States. ...
• * Of the 50 states, 48 have a winner-take-all policy in the electoral college. This means that if a candidate wins the popular vote in a state, regardless of the margin of victory, that candidate will receive all of the states electoral votes. Maine and Nebraska have a format in which two electors are selected by the statewide popular vote and the remainder by a popular vote within each Congressional district. In addition, some states have adopted laws that require electors to vote for the candidate who wins the statewide popular vote. ...
• Debate: Should we keep the Electoral College?.
• Although the Electoral College has been in existence since 1787, it has always been a source of controversy. The chaos that surrounded the election of 2000 resulted in a spirited dialogue across the nation about the legitimacy of the Electoral College. ...
• Reasons to keep the Electoral College?.

• The Electoral College:  Fine, Fix, or Flush?.
• As the battle over the final results of Election 2000 wages on, I hear increasing calls, largely from the Democraps and their ideological/sympathetic allies in the media, for the abolition of the 'outdated, outmoded, irrelevant' Electoral College, and putting the choice of president up to a strict vote of the people, or "the will of the people", as Democrats seem suddenly conveniently concerned with.
• Had Election 2000 turned out as many of the so-called experts originally predicted -- Dubya winning the popular vote, and Al Bore winning the electoral vote -- these same 'cast out the heathen' detractors of the Electoral College would be singing the praises of how well the Constitution works, and the demonstrated relevance and necessity of the Electoral College.
• Now that Election 2000 has been settled -- at least officially -- it might be of some benefit to review just exactly what the Electoral College is, and how it might be enhanced to more truly reflect the 'will of the people'. ...
• The Electoral College was originally designed and incorporated into the Constitution by the Founding Fathers, at a time when it was anticipated that presidential elections would be decided in the House of Representatives/Senate, rather than by the people. ...
• Based on the outcome of the popular vote for the individual states, the electors selected by the party of the popular vote winner, state by state, will then cast their electoral vote for that candidate, after the November general election results are tallied and certified.   In some states, the electors must vote for the candidate winning the popular vote in that state; in others, the electors can conceivably vote against the expressed will of their own state's popular vote, though occurrences of this are rare, as I understand it, and no such occurrence has ever altered the results of an election so far.
• Though I note that, thanks to news reports and statements by electors in various states, the Democraps are waging a secondary campaign behind the scenes, urging electors to vote a different 'will of the people', in defiance of the will of the people in their respective state. ...
•   And that it was unfair to have the next occupant of the Oval/Oral Office determined by the archaic structure of the Electoral College, since it tentatively appears that the result won't be in favor of the national 'will of the people'. ...
•   Officially, in 1888 and 1916, the winning presidential candidate did lose the popular vote, but won the strategic electoral vote, and hence, the White House.   In 1960, tactical  voter fraud in Illinois probably tipped the popular, and subsequently electoral vote, to JFK. ... Nixon, the victim of this vote-fixing criminality, chose to forego costly court challenges, vote recounts, and conceded the election to Kennedy.
• The argument against eliminating the Electoral College is simple, yet quite valid:  eliminating the Electoral College would allow national candidates to focus their efforts and campaign funds east of the Mississippi River, and along the West Coast, where a majority of the continential US population is concentrated. ...
• And that's the kind of will subordination that the Electoral College tends to defend against.
•   What's more, and if this latest mantra of the Democraps -- "the will of the people" -- is sincere and genuine, then I have a solution that will save the extremely difficult task of abolishing a 200-plus year old element of the US Constitution, will preserve the value and equity of the Electoral College, YET will enhance and strengthen the cherished and valued "will of the people". ...
•   He didn't recall ever hearing the idea presented before; though, I read where there have been nearly 700 attempts to adjust or eliminate the Electoral College, mostly unsuccessful. ...

• Subcommittee Hearing on "Proposals for Electoral College Reform: H. ...
• I am pleased to be here today to express the League's support for a constitutional amendment to abolish the electoral college and establish the direct election of the President and Vice President of the United States by popular vote of the American people. ...
• Since 1970, the League has supported an amendment to the Constitution that would abolish the electoral college and establish a direct, popular vote for the President and Vice President of the United States. ...
• Political developments since the 1970s have only underscored the need for the elimination of the electoral college system. The downward trend in voter participation, coupled with increased cynicism and skepticism amongst the public about the ability of elected leaders to provide meaningful representation are the warning signs of a potential electoral fiasco. ...
• Picture if you will a future national election in which a presidential candidate receives a majority of the popular vote, but is denied the 270 votes necessary for election by the electoral college. This has already happened once in our nation's history, when, in 1888, Grover Cleveland out-polled Benjamin Harrison in the popular vote but lost the electoral college vote by 233 to 168. ...
• Consider a close three-way race for President in which no candidate earns the necessary electoral college votes to win. ...
• In the twentieth century, we have only narrowly avoided a series of constitutional crises in which the electoral college could have over-ruled the popular vote. ...
• In the 1916 presidential election, a shift of only 2,000 votes in California would have given Charles Evans Hughes the necessary electoral votes to defeat Woodrow Wilson, despite Wilson's half-million vote nationwide plurality. ...
• In 1968, a shift of 42,000 votes in three states (Alaska, Missouri and New Jersey) would have denied Nixon an electoral college victory and thrown the election into the House of Representatives. ...
• In 1976, a shift of only 9,300 votes (5,600 from Ohio and 3,700 from Hawaii) would have elected Gerald Ford, even though he trailed Jimmy Carter in the popular vote by 1. ...
• Apart from the public outcry that would be caused by a circumvention of the popular will, there are a number of other serious flaws in the electoral college system. ...
• The electoral college system is fundamentally unfair to voters. In a nation where voting rights are grounded in the one person, one vote principle, the electoral college is a hopeless anachronism. ...
• First, a citizen's individual vote has more weight if he or she lives in a state with a small population than if that citizen lives in a state with a large population. ...

• Jubilation over IDS electoral vote of confidence.
• "We're on our way back now," he screamed, alluding to the Tory gain of Trumpton Pond council (in coalition as junior partner to the BNP) and the success of Orkney West where a candidate received the first Conservative vote there for over 50 years.

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