How Does The Electoral Process Work?

In 1787, when the Constitution was being drafted, the Founding Fathers didn’t want the president and vice president of the United States to be chosen directly by the people or by Congress. To establish a role for the states in national elections — consistent with their idea of a federalist system of government — and to protect the country from what they saw as an ill-informed populace, they devised a system that came to be known as the Electoral College.

The system was supposed to ensure that a candidate who may have overwhelming support in only one part of the country — which might enable him to win a slim majority of the popular vote nationally — would not be elected president against the will of the rest of the nation.

In some states, the legislatures chose the electors; in others, electors were chosen by popular vote. The system has changed little in more than 200 years, except that now each state’s political parties nominate slates of electors who pledge to support their party’s candidates.

These electors are part of the Electoral College. Each state has a number of electors equal to the number of its senators (always 2) plus the number of its representatives (determined by the state’s population), for a total college of 538 electors. The first candidate to win more than half the electoral votes (at least 270) becomes president.

The candidate with the most popular votes in a state gets all of that state’s electoral votes.




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