The Electoral College Explained

Southeastern students By Southeastern students
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on November 02, 2008 at 8:30 PM, updated November 07, 2008 at 1:49 PM


Voters and legislatures across the country have discussed the relative merits of the current electoral system versus other proposed systems, such as that espoused by the National Popular Vote movement. To date, only four states--Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey--have enacted NPV legislation, which would go into effect only if adopted by enough states to garner a majority of the nation's electoral votes. However, 24 states considered NPV bills in 2008, and 42 states considered such legislation in 2007, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

To understand why the electoral college has been a topic of such frequent and widespread debate, one must first understand what the electoral college is, why it exists and how it works, as well as some of the elections from years past that have brought this body to the forefront of political discourse.

Facts about the Electoral College

The Electoral College is composed of candidates that are elected by the state's political parties prior to the primary presidential election. The number of electors per state depends on the number of representatives and senators in the respective state. For example, Louisiana has 2 senators and 7 representatives; therefore, Louisiana has 9 total electoral votes.

The purpose of the Electoral College is to select the next President of the United States for the general population. Yep, you got it! When you vote, you are not actually voting for the president. You are voting for the electors that will vote for the next president for you.

The Founding Fathers of the United States decided to establish the Electoral College under Article II of the U.S. Constitution. This system of electors serves as a compromise between those who wanted Congress to choose the president and those who believed it should be left up to the general population.

In order to be considered for the position of elector, one must demonstrate complete dedication to their political party. An elector could be a state official, party leader or individual who has had strong affiliations with the party. When the time comes to vote, the elector's name may or may not appear on the ballot with the candidate's name, depending on the state.

Pros and Cons of the Electoral College

The Electoral College prevents a candidate from winning only in a heavily populated area. This forces the candidate to campaign in many places and not just focus on the most populated areas. Furthermore, it gives minority groups their rightful power to vote and encourages both parties to seek their votes.

In the case of a presidential candidate dying or becoming unfit to serve, the Electoral College has the ability to elect the most suitable candidate to preside in the president's absence. Additionally, it prevents many recount issues with the elections.

The Electoral College system is not without its drawbacks, however. With the Electoral College, many feel there is no point to the national popular vote. Additionally, a presidential hopeful can win the election by just winning 11 states. If the candidate takes California, Texas, Illinois, New York, Florida, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and New Jersey, then the electoral votes add up to 271, which is enough to win the election.

Many feel that it discourages people from voting since the vote does not go directly to the candidate. It is also a disadvantage to the third parties because of the winner-takes-all method. Furthermore, although it is expected that an elector will vote within their party, there is no constitutional provision requiring electors to vote a certain way.

Swing states, toss-up states, battleground states

Swing states, toss-up states and battleground states are not necessarily the same thing. A swing state is one where the popular vote may swing from the party it has traditionally supported to the other party during the current election, or a state that has not established a pattern of voting for a particular party. In contrast, a toss-up state is one where the polling data indicates that neither candidate has a lead exceeding the margin of error, indicating that the race is a "statistical dead heat" in that state and that it's a "toss-up" as to which candidate will win there.

A battleground state is one deemed critical to determining which candidate will win the election, either because of its status as a swing state or as a toss-up state or simply because it has the number of electoral votes a particular candidate needs to win.

These terms, although slightly different in meaning, often overlap. For example, Florida is a swing state because, although it primarily votes Republican, it has also occasionally voted Democrat, most recently in 1996 for William Jefferson Clinton and prior to that in 1976 for Jimmy Carter. Florida is also considered a toss-up state in this election because the candidates are currently polling within the margin of error in that state. Florida is also a battleground state for this election because both candidates have spent significant time and money campaigning there in the hopes of winning the state's electoral votes.

In most states, electors pledge to support a particular candidate so that, when the voters select that candidate and/or elector on the ballot, they can be reasonably certain the elector chosen will actually vote for the candidate the voter wants to win.

If a pledged elector does not vote as he or she pledged to vote, that elector is called a "faithless elector." There have been 158 instances of faithless electors in history. 71 electors voted differently than pledged because the original candidate died before the elector was able to cast a vote, while 2 of those electors did not cast a vote at all when they chose to abstain from voting for any candidate. 85 votes were different than pledged due to either personal interest or mistake.

Faithless electors usually act alone but sometimes form a bloc. Fortunately, faithless electors have never changed the outcome of an election. They can be punished by the state they represent after they have cast a vote outside their pledge, but their votes will still count in determining who will win the election, except in Michigan and Minnesota, where state laws invalidate votes cast other than as pledged.
While 24 states have laws to punish faithless electors, none have actually been punished.

For a list of all faithless electors, please see

In other states, electors do not pledge to support a particular candidate. These unpledged electors were most frequently used in Southern states to protest the Democratic and Republican candidates.

For a list of elections in which unpledged electors played a significant role, or for more information about the history behind the unpledged elector system, please see

There have been four different occasions in the past where the candidate who won the popular vote did not garner the required electoral votes, thus losing the election.

1824 - Adams over Jackson
Andrew Jackson won the popular vote by 44,804 votes, and he won 15 more electoral votes than his nearest competitor, John Quincy Adams. However, because there were four candidates splitting the electoral vote, Jackson did not win the constitutionally required majority of the Electoral College. Therefore, the decision was turned over to the House of Representatives, where Adams received votes from 13 state delegations, while Jackson received only 7. Thus, Adams was elected President, rather than Jackson.

1876 - Hayes over Tilden
Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote by 264,292 votes, but Rutherford B. Hayes was elected President after winning the Electoral College by a single vote.

1888 - Harrison over Cleveland
Grover Cleveland won the popular vote by 100,456 votes, but Benjamin Harrison was elected President after winning the Electoral College by 65 votes.

2000 - Bush over Gore
Albert Gore Jr. won the popular vote by 543,895 votes, but George W. Bush was elected President after winning the Electoral College by 5 votes.

There are many resources available to you on the internet to learn more about the electoral college, as well as explore election results from past elections. To view the electoral map for every presidential election, from 1789 to present, please see

To predict the winner of the 2008 Presidential Election, or to calculate which states either candidate would need to pick up in order to win the election, please see