How does the Electoral College work to elect a President?
The Basics you need to know
Think of the election as a game. It could be called “Race to 270” because whomever gets 270 points wins and gets to become President. Each state is worth a certain number of electoral points. States with lots of people, like California, New York, Texas, etc. are worth more points. States with very few people like Vermont, Montana, and Wyoming are worth very few points.
IMPORTANT POINT: The PHYSICAL size of a state has nothing to do with how many points a state is worth. The only thing that matters is how many people live there.
On election day, if a candidate gets the most votes in that state, he or she is given ALL of the points from that state. That is why you’ll hear newscasters say things like “ Massachusetts has gone for… (candidate)”. This system is called “Winner take all”.
IMPORTANT POINT: It doesn’t matter how close the election in the state was—the winner still gets all the points. Thus, if Obama wins Massachusetts by 2 votes or 2 million votes, the result is the same. All of Massachusetts 12 “electoral points” go to Obama
When all the state results are in, we can add up the totals each candidate has received and figure out who will become President.
A few more advanced questions
Could there be a tie? What happens then?
The total number of “points” possible is 538, so it is possible to have a 269-269 tie. If that were to happen, members of the House of Representatives would vote to decide who would become president. Since there are more Democrats than Republicans in the House of Representatives, a tie would likely go to Mr. Obama.
What is the exact formula to figure out how many points a state gets?
The “points” are called electoral college votes, or electors. To figure out the number of electoral college votes a stare has, you add the number of members from that state in the House of Representatives plus the number of Senators. Bigger states have more reps, but each state has two senators. Thus, California has 55 Electoral College Votes (“points”): 53 Representatives + 2 Senators Massachusetts has 12 Electoral College Votes (“points”): 10 Representatives + 2 senators. The minimum number of Electoral College Votes a state has is 3. Can you figure out why?
What states on the map do you see with the minimum number of Electoral College Votes?
Who are electors? What do they do? In reality, there is an extra step to the process. When your state votes, you are actually picking a group of people called “electors” to cast the official vote of the state for President. The electors meet in each state on December 14 to cast their vote. Even though the election is November 4th, until the electors meet, no one has officially been picked President. In modern times, political parties pick their own electors and make them pledge to vote for that candidate. For example, the McCain campaign/Republican party has 12 electors from Massachusetts and the Democratic Party/Obama campaign has a different set of 12 electors. If McCain wins the state, he sends his electors on December 14th. If Obama wins, he sends his. Are there any exceptions to the “winner take all” rule for giving out a state’s electoral college votes? Yes, Maine and Nebraska do it slightly differently. Maine has two equally populated Congressional districts and Nebraska has three. In these states a candidate could get one Electoral College vote if he/she won a district, even if he or she lost the whole state. EX: Maine has 4 Electoral College votes: 2 for their districts and 2 from their Senators. Imagine for a second that McCain won District
1 in Maine by a lot of votes and lost District 2 to Obama by just a few. Overall, McCain ends up with more votes in Maine than Obama. Obama would get 1 Electoral vote/point for winning District 2. Mcain would get 1 Electoral vote/point for winning District 1, plus the two other “bonus” ones for winning the state. His total would be 3. Maine has used this system since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996. Though it is possible to have split Elecoral College votes in this system, it has not happened yet.