User:A.J.A./Tohu&Bohu/EC

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The United States Electoral College is the body which carries out the last (or in rare circumstances, second to last) step in the election of the President and Vice President of the United States. Presidential electors are selected on a state by state basis as determined by the laws of each state. Currently every state chooses electors by popular election. Candidacy for the College is a legal fiction: the candidates are stand-ins for the Presidential candidates, whose names are the ones actually appearing on the ballots; therefore (with rare exceptions) electors vote for the winner of the plurality in their state or Congressional district. If a candidate receives a majority of votes in the Electoral College, he is elected (otherwise the election will be decided by the United States House of Representatives, which has only happened twice in American history). Each state is entitled to as many electors as it is Representatives and Senators in the United States Congress; House seats are apportioned by population, but every state has two Senate seats regardless of population. The federal district currently has three electors. There are 538 electors, making 270 electors a majority.

A plurality in a state wins every elector (except in Maine and Nebraska), which allows a candidate to assemble 270 electoral votes with only narrow wins in the right states, even if the other candidate wins large majorities in the other states. This, together with the fact that the apportionment is only partially by population, allows candidates to win without a majority of the nationwide popular vote, which plays no formal role in the election. The Electoral College is controversial in the United States and there are several proposals to reform or replace it.

[edit] Electoral College mechanics

The College is established by the United States Constitution in Article Two, Section One, and the 12th Amendment. It is administered at the national level by the National Archives and Records Administration via its Office of the Federal Register; it never meets as a single body, so the meetings of electors in each state are administered by state officials.

The election of the President of the United States and the Vice President of the United States is indirect. Presidential electors are selected on a state by state basis as determined by the laws of each state. Currently each state uses the popular vote on Election Day to elect electors. Although ballots list the names of the presidential candidates, voters within the 50 states and the District of Columbia are actually choosing Electors from their state when they vote for President and Vice President. These Presidential Electors in turn cast the official (electoral) votes for those two offices. Although the nationwide popular vote is calculated by official and media organizations, it does not determine the winner of the election.