'splain electoral votes please

C

chadintex

New member
OK, I admit it. I am a dummy. I slept through most of school. CNN shows that Bush has won most of the states in the union. I assume this means the votes of the people. Why is Gore ahead. Do our votes not count? Someone please help me understand what the electoral college is.

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chadintex@hotmail.com
 
A state has a number of electoral votes based on its population. In our winner take all system, if you win a state 51% to 49%, you get ALL of the states electoral votes.

States with a larger population (like California, New York and Texas) get a hefty chunk of electoral votes.

As a bonus though, the electoral representative is not obliged to vote the way his state voted. He can switch his vote with no legal penalty at all (although this has never happened as of yet - it would certainly lead to infamy for the first person to try it.)
 
How did this happen? Did the government decide this is how elections should be run? Sorry for the stupid questions, but I figure better to look stupid than be stupid.
 
It was decided in the Constitution. The idea was that the smaller states were afraid that a population-only vote would let the larger states dominate them.

There was an excellent explanation of it earilier today in either General or Legal. Try a search on "Electoral college".
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bartholomew Roberts:

As a bonus though, the electoral representative is not obliged to vote the way his state voted. He can switch his vote with no legal penalty at all (although this has never happened as of yet - it would certainly lead to infamy for the first person to try it.)[/quote]


Yes, it has happened.
 
The Founding Fathers of the country did not trust the people or the government. The Electoral College was set up because the writers of the Constitution did not want (or trust) direct election of the President. Initially, there was no direct election of US Senators either. Senators were elected by each state legislature. The Bill of Rights was written because they didn't trust the government either, and felt that the people needed more protection against the government.

In the Electoral College, each state got one electoral vote for each member of Congress: total number of Senators and Representatives. Wyoming gets three votes, California gets 56. Originally, voters voted for actual people who ran for Elector. The Elector promised, but was not legally bound, to vote for a particular candidates. Most states later changed the process to a winner-take-all system for the popular vote in the state. Major exceptions are Maine and Nebraska, which divide at least some of their state's votes based on vote winners in individual congressional districts. When you cast a vote for a candidate, you are really voting for a slate of electors who have promised to vote for that candidate. You probably don't know the names of the people you are voting for, and never will.

Electors are still not legally bound to vote for a particular candidate. There have been electors who voted for someone other than they had promised. There were few of these cases, and they never came close to changing the outcome of the election.

In 1800, Jefferson and Burr each got 73 electoral votes. In case of a tie, the House of Representatives elects the President, with each state getting one vote. In 1888, Benjamin Harrison lost the popular vote to Grover Cleveland, getting 5,444,337 votes to Cleveland's 5,540,050. But Harrison got 233 electoral votes to Cleveland's 168. If things end up as they look now (Wednesday morning), Gore will win the popular vote and Bush will win the Electoral vote and the Presidency.
 
For a fairly good description of the electoral college, visit the FEC's web site at http://www.fec.gov/elections.html and scroll down to the section on "The Electoral College." Should answer your questions.


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"People who say guns are bad are lucky enough never to have been in a situation where someone has kicked down your door and threatened the life of your son and your sixty-five-year-old mother."
-- Memphis, Tennessee resident Gina Cushon, quoted in Laura Ingraham's book "The Hillary Trap"
 
The thing to remember, under the current system, we don't actually elect the president, we just decide which party does in each state. It is a VERY bad system.

It needs to be replaced by district voting.

Voting by district would work like this:

The vote in each state would be broken up by House district. Each district won would aquire one point. So a candidate could say, win 2 districts in Iowa, and get two points, while his opponent gets 4 districts, and an independant gets 1. The person who gets the majority of the popular vote, would also get a point for each senator of that state.

So, in Iowa, the score would be, 2 points for losing major party candidate, 6 points for the winner, and 1 point for the independant. This would still give the states some power, but also keep big cities from controlling the vote in the entire state.

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The Alcove

I twist the facts until they tell the truth. -Some intellectual sadist

The Bill of Rights is a document of brilliance, a document of wisdom, and it is the ultimate law, spoken or not, for the very concept of a society that holds liberty above the desire for ever greater power. -Me

Compromising the right position only makes you more wrong.
 
Dangus,

I've never heard of Disrist Voting before...where did this idea come from? SOunds interesting. You can bet your arse that there will be a big cry to dump the electoral college after this is over, but replacing it with 1 person-1 vote would be lunacy. This sounds like it might be a viable replacement?

- gabe
 
Another presidential election and another call to end the Electoral College because it is possible that a candidate who receives more of the popular vote may not gain the 271 electoral votes to win the Office of President. These same people must complain that baseball's World Series is unfair because the Yankees might win the first game of the best-of-seven series by a score of 10 runs to zip, but lose the series when the
Mets win by scores of 1 to zip in each of the next four games. Even though the Yankees had out-scored the Mets 10 runs to 4 runs over the series, they didn't win the majority of games they needed under the rules to show they are the better team over the long haul.

The same is true of the Electoral College system. The Electoral College system also tends to favor more well-rounded presidents. Since Al Gore could not rely on liberal votes enmasse to win the election, he had to
convince majorities in each State, which requires that he dispose of views which are especially extreme. A candidate must be able to appeal to a wide geography and demographics, not just a certain political philosophy found in New England, California, and the liberal north-central States. It intensifies the voting power of each
State citizen by pitting his vote against a few million State citizens rather than 100 million from across the nation and makes it more difficult for larger States to bully the smaller States. It is designed so that individual States retain their influence in the national realm since candidates must court each state individually. It was
another way to preserve the sovereignty of the several States and in doing so served as leverage against the power of the federal government. If you think States aren't important and should be little more than lines on a map, go ahead and eliminate the Electoral College.


Rick
 
GRD

Maine and Nebraska have district voting in the Electoral College. I'm not sure how Nebraska's works, but Maine's was well explained on TV last night.

Maine has four electoral votes. Maine has two congressional districts and two more votes for its two Senators. Which ever candidate gets the most votes within a congressional district gets the one vote from that district. Which ever candidate gets the overall majority vote for the whole state gets the other two votes. Not a big deal in Maine with only 4 votes. The big winner is going to get at least 3 votes, maybe 4.

But in a state like California, which I believe has 56 votes, it could make a big difference. California has 54 congressional districts. Under this kind of system, whoever got the most votes overall in California would automatically get 2 votes. The other 54 would be awarded on a district by district basis. In a close race, the 56 votes could end up being pretty evenly divided between candidates. It would even be possible for a third party candidate to get a few electoral votes.

As far as I know, each state determines how its votes are awarded. Most have gone with a winner-takes-all procedure because they think that that gives the state more political clout.

[This message has been edited by sigmund (edited November 09, 2000).]
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I've never heard of Disrist Voting before...where did this idea come from?[/quote]

My friends and family and I were discussing it and that was the plan we came up with. It would give candidates points, and put the election directly in the hands of the people, instead of the electoral college.

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The Alcove

I twist the facts until they tell the truth. -Some intellectual sadist

The Bill of Rights is a document of brilliance, a document of wisdom, and it is the ultimate law, spoken or not, for the very concept of a society that holds liberty above the desire for ever greater power. -Me

Compromising the right position only makes you more wrong.
 
Like EricM says, it has happened 4 times where the electoralvoter has cast a ballot for someone other than the person that won the vote for that State.
Look at this scenerio. The Democrats have won the popular vote. In Florida, they have caused enough doubt over the Gore/Buchannan(sp) issue that it's possible that one of the electoral voters could vote Gore, even if Bush wins Florida. (Back to the popular vote total,)-That gives Bush 270 votes, assuming he doesn't get Or. Now, all the Democrats need to do is get one other voter to change in one of the other 29 States that Bush carried, and Bush ends up with 269 votes. Bottom line time here folks. This whole thing hinges on Florida AND Oregon. Those 7 votes from Oregon are Platinum right now. I can easily see Gore(the Democrats) getting enough sympathy to cause 1 of Bush's electoral voters to go the other way, and very possibly 2 of them to switch. This whole mess isn't going to get much clearer until after December 18th when the electoral college votes. :(
 
What the heck is going on with Oregon anyway? I haven't heard them declare a winner yet. They gotta be done counting by now.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by RAE:
In Florida, they have caused enough doubt over the Gore/Buchannan(sp) issue that it's possible that one of the electoral voters could vote Gore, even if Bush wins Florida. ([/quote]

Florida requires that electors take an oath to the governor that they'll vote for the candidate they're pledged to. I'm not sure what the legal penalties are but in many states it's a felony to switch a vote (the SCOTUS has ruled states can do this). In some states a governor can throw an elector off the panel and invalidate their vote if they switch their vote.
 
Re: District Voting

Are these the same districts which can be gerrymandered by the State Legislatures?

Rick
 
houndawg:
Oregon votes 100% by mail--no polling places. Don't know how long they have to wait for properly postmarked ballots to come in.
That's going to be a mess in Florida, where I believe absentee ballots have to be postmarked by election day and have to be received withing 10 days.
 
RickD, these would be the exact same as the Federal House of Representatives districts.

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The Alcove

I twist the facts until they tell the truth. -Some intellectual sadist

The Bill of Rights is a document of brilliance, a document of wisdom, and it is the ultimate law, spoken or not, for the very concept of a society that holds liberty above the desire for ever greater power. -Me

Compromising the right position only makes you more wrong.
 
As I said, subject to Gerrymandering.

Stick with the Electoral College. It causes presidential candidates to appeal to the sensibilities of each state. That would pre-suppose that one likes the concept of sovereign States.

Rick
I don't want to be like France.
 
but the problem with the electoral college is that if your candidate doesn't carry the whole damn state, your vote doesn't matter at all. Popular vote would be bad, but electoral is not good either at the moment.

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The Alcove

I twist the facts until they tell the truth. -Some intellectual sadist

The Bill of Rights is a document of brilliance, a document of wisdom, and it is the ultimate law, spoken or not, for the very concept of a society that holds liberty above the desire for ever greater power. -Me

Compromising the right position only makes you more wrong.
 
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