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HOW OUR PRESIDENT IS ELECTED: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
The Founding Fathers bad many problems to consider when they were writing the United
States Constitution. One of the most difficult problems was this - How should the
President be chosen? Here is the system upon which they decided.
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In 1787, the United States was still a young nation. Much of it was still wilderness.
Many of the people could not even read. Transportation was poor and news sometimes
. tookweeksto travel fromMassechusettsto.
Virginia. _The. people were spread out on --- .-.
. .- .. Iltt1e f'arms andtowns·-anover the country. The authors of the Constitution wondered
._ __ howthe.people.cculd.knew
enough..aoout-the-candidates-fuf-President-t&-vote '.visely.
They also wondered if the common people were qualified to judge who should be
President. They sent up the Electoral College System of electing the President to deal
with these concerns. Here is how that system works.
Each state is allowed to send a certain number of people to vote for President. These
people who actually vote for President and Vice President are called Electors. There are
a total of538 Electors. The number of Electors each state can send to vote for President
is listed on the back of this reading.
You will notice that states do not send the same number of Electors to vote for President.
The Founding Fathers thought that states with larger populations should get more votes
for President. So they decided that a state would get to send as many Electors to vote for
President as they have U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative. For example,
Pennsylvania has I'd U.S. Representatives and 2 U.S. Senators. Therefore, Pennsylvania
gets to send 20 Electors to vote for President (18 + 2 = 20). However, the actual U.S.
Representative and U.S. Senators are NOT the electors. It is just a formula for figuring
the number of Electors each state can send to vote for President.
How are each state's Electors chosen? How do they decide which 20 Pennsylvania
citizens will be Pennsylvania's Electors? Here is how they are selected: Each political
party in Pennsylvania picks 20 of its members to be Electors. These are selected before
the presidential election. Therefore, the Democratic Party selects 20 loyal Democrats and
the Republican Party selects 2D loyal Republicans. Other political parties also select 20
loyal party members. On Election Day, all people 18 and over who are registered to vote
go and cast their vote for president. This is called the popular or ''peoples '" vote. Here is
an example of the popular vote in Pennsylvania:
3,000,001 people pull the Republican lever (vote for the Republican candidate)
3,000,000 people pull the Democratic lever (vote for the Democratic candidate)
Since more people voted for the Republican Party than the Democratic Party, the 20
Republican Electors will represent Pennsylvania. These 20 Republicans are the ones who
directly vote for President. The system is called "winners take all" meaning that
whichever party wins the state gets to send all of their Electors to vote for President. To
become President a candidate must get a majority (270) of the total electoral votes.
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ELECTORAL
9 Alabama
3 Montana
3 Alaska
5 Nebraska
I\ Arizona
6 Nevada
6 Arkansas
4 New Hampshire
55 California
f4 New Jersey
9 Colorado
5 New Mexico
7 _ConnecticuL
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-aq New-¥mk- 3 Delaware 15 North Carolina
--J--IAstflet-efC-t>:lumbMiiar------3-North-Bako+nLac---1~Florida
18 Ohio
It Georgia
7 Oklahoma
4 Hawaii
7 Oregon
4 Idaho
~o Pennsylvania
l,() Illinois
4 Rhode Island
11 Indiana
q South Carolina
, Iowa
3 South Dakota
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11 Tennessee
8 Kentucky
.3~ Texas
8 Louisiana
G Utah
4 Maine
3 Vermont
10 Maryland
13 Virginia
f t Massachusetts
t Do Washington
I b Michigan
5 West Virginia
10 Minnesota
10 Wisconsin
6 Mississippi
3 Wyoming
10 Missouri
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••
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VOTES
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100 Senate Seats
435 House Seats
+ 3 District of Columbia
538 Total Electors
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QUESTIONS:
1. How do we figure out how many electoral votes each state gets?
2. Are the U.S. Representative and U.S. Senators from each state the Electors for their
state?
3. What are the people who vote directly for President called?
4. When all the registered voters vote on Election Day, are they casting ''popular'' votes
or "electoral" votes?
5. Assume that the following is the result of the popular vote in California:
10,000,000 votes for the Democratic Party
8,000,000 votes for the Republican Party
a. How many of California's 55 Electors will be Democrats?
b. How many ofCalifomia's 55 Electors will be Republicans?
6. Of the 538 total Electoral Votes, how many does a candidate need to get to be elected
President?
7. What is the minimum number of states a candidate can win and become President. Do
themath©
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