How Americans vote: the technology (1)
Archived Articles | 29 Oct 2004 | Adu RaudkiviEWR
In the last Presidential Campaign the loser got more votes than the winner, and kept stressing the inequality of it. So what happened? The answer given was that the Electoral College is the deciding factor. So what is the Electoral College? Do Americans have to send their votes to university to get a higher education before they get them counted?
No.
There are 538 Electoral College votes. Each Congressional Distict gets a vote. The District of Columbia where Washington sits does not have a Congressional seat yet gets 3 Electoral College votes. Maine and Nebraska each have two votes that are decided by statewide election and the rest by Congressional seat election. The way each Congressional seat votes determines who gets the Electoral College vote even if it is by a few votes. Thus more than 270 Electoral College votes equals a Presidential victory.
The need therefore is for the Presidential candidates to run a national campaign and then local campaigns relevant to Congressional seats without conflicting with other seats. Marvellous balancing act, if there ever was one.
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Mr. Raudkivi's statement needs a correction. In addition to the number of electors determined by the number of members it sends to the House of Representatives (a total of 435), each state elects two electors who represent the number of its senators. This gives us a total of 535 electors. District of Columbia is not a state but is entitled to three electors based on the XXIII Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1961. Thus the electoral college consists of 538 members. Except for Maine and Nebraska, as noted by Mr. Raudkivi, all electoral votes of a state go to the candidate who gets the plurality of the statewide votes. For example, my state Maryland has 8 representatives and 2 senators, thus it is entitled to 10 electors. John Kerry received 53% of the votes and thus all 10 electors. 270 votes are required for the election of the president.
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