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In accordance with the United States Constitution, the U.S. Electoral College meets every four years in the several U.S. States to elect the President of the United States.

Voting for president of the United States is an indirect election. Voters within the several states and the District of Columbia (which is considered a state when voting for President according to Amendment XXIII of the Constitution) choose electors when they vote for president; the number of electors assigned to each state is equal to the number of senators (always two) and representatives that the state has in Congress, but no senator or representative may serve as an elector. The number of electors for the District of Columbia is equal to the number of senators and representatives for the least populous state. The voters vote on separate ballots for president and vice president, one of whom may not be an inhabitant of the same state as themselves.

Once voting is complete, a record of the votes is sent to the President of the Senate, who, in the presence of both houses of Congress, opens them up and tallies the votes. The person with the most votes for president becomes the new President on the following January 20, and the person with the most votes for vice president becomes vice president on the same date. If no person wins a majority of votes, the House of Representatives then votes to decide who shall become the next President.

In practice, the voters choose slates of electors pledged to candidates for president and vice president; in most states, the names of the electors do not appear on the ballot. Legally, the electors are free to cast their votes for anyone they choose; in practice, electors almost never vote for a candidate they are not pledged to. Several states, but not all, have laws stating that if an elector becomes "faithless" and does not vote for the candidate to which he is pledged, he can be replaced.

Most states direct their electors to vote for the candidate who received the plurality of votes by individual voters within that state, but a few (Maine and Nebraska) divide their votes proportionately.

A controversial system

Supporters of the College

Supporters of the college claim that it acts as a method of amplifying the voting power of an individual voter from a specific state in a U.S. presidential election. Without the Electoral College, with the vote based on majority rule, it would be possible to win a strict majority of votes located in a few geographically restricted areas of the country.

The fear is without the college, one could campaign and win in only the 10 largest cities in the union disenfranchising (for one example) the sparsely populated mountain United States. This is illustrated by the fact that the combined total population of the 10 largest cities in the nation is (from the 1995 Statistical Abstract of the United States) almost 21.9 million. The entire population of the mountain region of the United States (et al) is 15.2 million. This effect is magnified when the analysis is broadened to the 10 largest metropolitan areas, not just the size of the largest cities proper. This would allow a candidate to focus resources, time, and political capital in winning the greatest numbers of voters in the cities. It is felt that this pressure would apply to all parties, and lead to voters in the sparcely populated West being completely ignored.

An example of a situation where the interests of a metropolitan area directly conflict with the interests of a state or region, the example of Los Angeles (pop. 3.5 million) and Colorado (pop. 3.2 million) river water is illustrative.

A direct election would focus candidates resources on large cities such as Los Angeles. The debate would naturally center on local issues that directly effected Los Angeles citizens. Los Angeles derives a great deal of their water from the Colorado river, originating in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The amount of water reserved for California impacts Colorado significantly and directly, and its use results in much contention. Supporters of the college feel that competing interests such as these are best served by compelling candidates to campaign in smaller states and address their issues. If a direct election was instituted, Colorado would be ignored, as a candidate would have to campaign over the entire state (the 8th largest) for a smaller number of votes than the extremely smaller city of Los Angeles.

Thus, the intent of the college is to favour a candidate whose appeal is more broadly distributed on a geographical basis across the nation (see the 2000 election, below). This may lead to the rare circumstance of giving the election to a candidate who did not win a plurality of the popular vote. This is seen as preferable than giving the election to one who is favored by voters who are concentrated in a minority of regions or only by voters in large states.

Detractors of the College

Detractors of the college feel that this system is out of date and undemocratic. They advocate direct election of the President by the voters, which sometimes produces different results than the electoral college system (for example, the 1888 and 2000 elections). Supporters of direct election argue that it disenfranchises no one, since it gives everyone an equal vote, regardless of which part of the country they live in, and oppose giving disproportionately amplified voting power to voters in small states.

Alternative Systems

The electoral college requires a majority vote in order for a victor to be declared. In the case of a hypothetical direct election with multiple candidates, the question of majority versus plurality comes into play. In many recent American presidential elections (1980, 1992, 1996, and 2000), no single candidate achieved an absolute majority of the popular vote. Some nations with direct Presidential voting, such as France, have a second round of voting if no candidate achieves a majority of votes in the first round; in the second round, the election is restricted to the two candidates with the highest number of votes. Some have argued that the French system creates problems of its own; it is possible that the initial vote becomes divided up between so many candidates that someone who is highly undesirable to most voters can make it to the second round of voting, as occured in 2002 with the rise of the extremist candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen to the runoff election. One solution to this problem would be to implement instant runoff voting.

The 2000 election

To illustrate the debate, the 2000 election is useful. The various totals are:

• Gore won 50,999,897 votes (the plurality, not majority, of total votes cast)
• Bush won 50,456,002 votes
• Nader won 2,882,955 votes

• Gore won 20 states
• Bush won 30 states (the majority of states won)

• Gore won 677 counties
• Bush won 2,434 counties (the majority of counties won)

• Gore won 580,000 square miles of America
• Bush won 2,400,000 square miles of America (the majority of land mass)

External links

• Math Against Tyranny - an article describing MIT researcher Alan Natapoff's analysis favoring the electoral college system

• League of Women Voters - A web page from the League of Women Voters advocating direct election and the abolition of the electoral college