woodguru

Actually you need to check your sources there simple, the republican party has only won a couple of the last ten elections...most recently trump DID NOT win the 2020, at least by any standing statistics, his belief that he won the election popular vote is his erroneous belief and doesn't fly.

Simple Sam Loc: USA

Sorry to disappoint you, the Electoral College, the system by which the American people vote not for president and vice president, but for a smaller group of people, known as electors. These electors then cast their votes directly for president and vice president, at a meeting held several weeks after the general election.

MatthewlovesAyn Loc: Ohio

You're an embarrassment to the state of Ohio.

rjoeholl

Well, we sure got the Woodgulper's bile up.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

The Electoral College is an important and often controversial process by which the United States selects the president every four years. The Founding Fathers created the Electoral College system as a compromise between having the president elected by Congress and having the president elected by the popular vote of qualified citizens.

Every fourth November, after almost two years of campaign hype and fundraising, more than 136 million Americans cast their votes for the presidential candidates.1 Then, in the middle of December, the president and vice president of the United States are actually elected. This takes place when the votes of only 538 citizens—the "electors" of the Electoral College System—are counted.2
How the Electoral College Works

The Electoral College system was established in Article II of the Constitution and was amended by the 12th Amendment in 1804. When you vote for a presidential candidate, you are in fact voting to instruct the electors from your state to cast their votes for the same candidate.

For example, if you vote for the Republican candidate in the November election, you are really just picking an elector who will be pledged to vote for the Republican candidate when the Electoral College votes in December. The candidate who wins the popular vote in a state wins all the pledged votes of the state's electors in the 48 winner-take-all states and District of Columbia.3 Nebraska and Maine award electors proportionally.4

The National Archives and Records Administration explains:

"Maine has four Electoral votes and two Congressional districts. It awards one Electoral vote per Congressional district and two by the statewide, 'at-large' vote."5

Nebraska has five Electoral College votes; three are awarded to the district winners and two are given to the statewide popular vote-getter.6 7 Overseas territories of the United States, such as Puerto Rico, have no say in presidential elections, even though their residents are U.S. citizens.
How Electors Are Awarded

Each state gets a number of electors equal to its number of members in the U.S. House of Representatives plus one for each of its two U.S. senators. The District of Columbia gets three electors.8 State laws determine how electors are chosen, but they are generally selected by the political party committees within the states.

Each elector gets one vote. Thus, a state with eight electors would cast eight votes. As of the 1964 election, there are 538 electors, and the votes of a majority of them—270—are required to be elected.8 Because Electoral College representation is based on congressional representation, states with larger populations get more Electoral College votes.

Should none of the candidates win 270 electoral votes, the 12th Amendment mandates the election be decided by the House of Representatives. The combined representatives of each state get one vote and a simple majority of states is required to win. This has only happened twice: Presidents Thomas Jefferson in 1801 and John Quincy Adams in 1825 were elected by the House of Representatives.9
Faithless Electors

While the state electors are "pledged" to vote for the candidate of the party that chose them, nothing in the Constitution requires them to do so. In rare instances, an elector will defect and not vote for their party's candidate. Such "faithless" votes rarely change the outcome of the election, and laws of some states prohibit electors from casting them. However, no state has ever prosecuted someone for not voting the way they were pledged.

The 2016 election saw the most ever faithless electors (seven); the previous record was six electors who changed their votes in 1808.10
When the Electoral College Meets

The public casts their votes on the first Tuesday after Nov. 1, and before the sun sets in California, at least one of the TV networks likely will have declared a winner. By midnight, one of the candidates will have probably claimed victory and others will concede defeat.

But not until the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, when the electors of the Electoral College meet in their state capitals to cast their votes, will there actually be a new president- and vice president-elect.

The reason for the delay between the general election and the Electoral College meetings is that during the 1800s, it took that long to count the popular votes and for all the electors to travel to the state capitals. Today, the time is more likely to be used for settling any protests due to election code violations and for vote recounts.
Criticisms of the System

Critics of the Electoral College system point out that it allows the possibility of a candidate actually losing the nationwide popular vote but being elected president by the electoral vote. A look at the electoral votes from each state and a little math will show you how.

In fact, it is possible for a candidate to not get a single person's vote in 39 states or the District of Columbia, yet be elected president by winning the popular vote in just 11 of these 12 states11 (the number of electoral votes is in parentheses):8

California (55)
New York (29)
Texas (38)
Florida (29)
Pennsylvania (20)
Illinois (20)
Ohio (18)
Michigan (16)
New Jersey (14)
North Carolina (15)
Georgia (16)
Virginia (13)

Because 11 of these 12 states account for exactly 270 votes, a candidate could win these states, lose the other 39, and still be elected.11 Of course, a candidate popular enough to win California or New York will almost certainly win some smaller states.
When the Top Vote-Getter Lost

Five times in America's history presidential candidates have lost the nationwide popular vote, but been elected president in the Electoral College:

In 1824, 261 electoral votes were available, with 131 needed to be elected president.12 13 In the election between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson—both Democratic-Republicans—neither candidate won the necessary 131 electoral votes.12 13 While Jackson won more electoral and popular votes than Adams, the House of Representatives, acting under the 12th Amendment of the Constitution, selected John Quincy Adams as the sixth President of the United States. Bitter over the process, Jackson and his supporters proclaimed the election of Adams a “corrupt bargain.”14
In 1876, 369 electoral votes were available, with 185 needed to win.15 Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, with 4,033,497 popular votes, won 185 electoral votes.16 His main opponent, Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, won the popular vote with 4,288,191 votes but won only 184 electoral votes. Hayes was elected president.16
In 1888, 401 electoral votes were available, with 201 needed to win.17 Republican Benjamin Harrison, with 5,449,825 popular votes, won 233 electoral votes.17 His main opponent, Democrat Grover Cleveland, won the popular vote with 5,539,118 votes but won only 168 electoral votes.17 Harrison was elected president.
In 2000, 538 electoral votes were available, with 270 needed to win. Republican George W. Bush, with 50,455,156 popular votes, won 271 electoral votes.18 His Democratic opponent, Al Gore, won the popular vote with 50,992,335 votes but won only 266 electoral votes. Bush was elected president.18
In 2016, a total of 538 electoral votes were again available, with 270 needed to be elected.8 Republican candidate Donald Trump was elected president, winning 304 electoral votes, compared to the 227 won by Democrat Hillary Clinton.19 However, Clinton received about 2.9 million more popular votes nationwide than Trump, a margin of 2.1% of the total vote.19 Trump’s Electoral College victory was sealed by popular vote wins in the perennial swing states of Florida, Iowa, and Ohio, as well as in the so-called “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, all Democratic strongholds in presidential elections since the 1990s. With most media sources predicting an easy victory for Clinton, Trump’s election brought the Electoral College system under intense public scrutiny. Trump detractors tried to protest his election and petitioned electors to cast faithless elector votes. Only seven listened.

Why the Electoral College?

Most voters would be unhappy to see their candidate win the most votes but lose the election. Why would the Founding Fathers create a constitutional process that would allow this to happen?

The framers of the Constitution wanted to make sure the people were given direct input in choosing their leaders and saw two ways to accomplish this:

The people of the entire nation would vote for and elect the president and vice president based on popular votes alone: a direct popular election.
The people of each state would elect their members of the U.S. Congress by direct popular election. The members of Congress would then express the wishes of the people by electing the president and vice president themselves: an election by Congress.

The Founding Fathers feared the direct popular election option. There were no organized national political parties yet, and no structure from which to choose and limit the number of candidates.

Also, travel and communication were slow and difficult at that time. A very good candidate could be popular regionally but remain unknown to the rest of the country. A large number of regionally popular candidates would thus divide the vote and not indicate the wishes of the nation as a whole.

On the other hand, election by Congress would require the members to both accurately assess the desires of the people of their states and to actually vote accordingly. This could have led to elections that better reflected the opinions and political agendas of the members of Congress than the actual will of the people.

As a compromise, the Electoral College system was developed.

Considering that only five times in the nation's history has a candidate lost the popular national vote but been elected by electoral vote, the system has worked well. Yet, the Founding Fathers' concerns with direct popular elections have mostly vanished. The national political parties have been around for years. Travel and communication are no longer problems. The public has access to every word spoken by every candidate every day.

These changes have led to calls for reforms to the system, for example, so that more states have a proportional allocation of electoral votes to more accurately reflect the popular vote.

California, the largest state, gets 55 electoral votes for its estimated 39.5 million people as of July 2019.8 20 That's only one electoral vote per 718,182 people. On the other extreme, thinly populated Wyoming gets 3 votes for its estimated 579,000 people as of July 2019, which amounts to one electoral vote per 193,000 people.8

The net effect is that smaller population states have greater representation in the Electoral College, while larger states are, essentially, underrepresented.

nonalien1 Loc: Mojave Desert

Illinois and Chicago? Isn't Chicago in Illinois? I know its close to the Indiana border but still in the ill state

woodguru

How can you have it so wrong? The people of a state do not "vote" for the electors, the electors are chosen in theory and intent to cast the votes for the state as reflected by the popular vote outcome...if a democrat wins it would be expected that the electors as a matter of formality will vote democrat...NOT the republicans who do not agree with the outcome selecting electors that will disregard the will of the people of the state simply because they can appoint republican electors.

There is no point in having an election if the county election boards, secretary of state, or governor has the right to disregard the election and send electors to vote for the republican who lost.

woodguru

mathewlovesayn sort of says it all, does mathew love hitler as well?

woodguru

Blade_Runner]
The Founding Fathers created the Electoral College system as a compromise between having the president elected by Congress and having the president elected by the popular vote of qualified citizens.

When you vote for a presidential candidate, you are in fact voting to instruct the electors from your state to cast their votes for the same candidate.
Exactly...the winner of the popular vote sends it's electors to cast a vote for the winner of the state. Not have the will of the majority subverted by the losing party that happens to have legislative control

For example, if you vote for the Republican candidate in the November election, you are really just picking an elector who will be pledged to vote for the Republican candidate when the Electoral College votes in December. The candidate who wins the popular vote in a state wins all the pledged votes of the state's electors in the 48 winner-take-all states and District of Columbia.3 Nebraska and Maine award electors proportionally.4
Except we are seeing the intent to derail that pledge

The Founding Fathers feared the direct popular election option. There were no organized national political parties yet, and no structure from which to choose and limit the number of candidates.
A historically relative timeline would show that those who cooked up this electoral solution did it for other reasons than would be relevant today. There were fears of an uneducated population numerous enough to take control could do exactly that.

Also, travel and communication were slow and difficult at that time. A very good candidate could be popular regionally but remain unknown to the rest of the country. A large number of regionally popular candidates would thus divide the vote and not indicate the wishes of the nation as a whole.
Factors I was referring to that negate the relevance of the electoral college

The net effect is that smaller population states have greater representation in the Electoral College, while larger states are, essentially, underrepresented.
Which negates a core principle of the constitution...one citizen one vote

MatthewlovesAyn Loc: Ohio

MatthewlovesAyn Loc: Ohio

You can't even spell. Succubus.

Elrond51 Loc: New Mexico

Trump - 2016

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Ignorant dipshit, the Electoral College IS a core principle of the constitution, as is the RIGHT to vote.

The POTUS is the only federal officer elected by all American voters.
What may be called the "popular vote" is limited to the residents of the several states in electing those to represent them in the HOR.
The ratification of the 17th amendment destroyed the authority of the US Senate to represent their state legislatures.


The Electoral College prevents one region from dominating the governance of our Republic
By David J. Bowie, Dec. 18, 2019.

Article II Section 1 of the constitution established the Electoral College for the election of the president and vice president. However, there are those who believe that this institution is outdated and should be abolished.

During my career in State Government, I learned one very important lesson: The numbers don’t lie. So let’s take a look at the numbers.

As of 2018, the population of the United States is 327 million people, and the combined population of the top six States, as electoral votes are concerned is 135,486,171 and the total number of Electoral votes totals 191.

While not minimizing the importance of the 191 Electoral votes, consider, for a moment, the future of our republic if 135 million people decide the fate of approximately 200 million people. From my perspective, this is a scenario that is just too frightening to contemplate.

The Founding Fathers, were men of extraordinary wisdom and insight, and it was their belief that the “playing field” should be level and that a particular geographic area of the country would not have undue influence on the outcome of an election, simply because of their population. This was the rationale behind the formation of the Electoral College.

Imagine, if you will, the republic that the Founding Fathers fought and sacrificed for reduced to a majority-driven democracy. Do we dare contemplate the possibility of social policies being decided on the whim of misinformed or uninformed electorate? I can’t, and the possibility frightens me in ways I can’t and don’t want to imagine.

Our constitution was written by remarkable men, of extraordinary and amazing wisdom and intelligence, and it does not need to evolve, change or conform to the whims of radical factions in our society.

Although it cannot be confirmed, Thomas Jefferson was believed to have said that democracy was equal to mob rule. The very concept threatens the fabric of our country.

The American people must not be duped by shortsighted and diluted people who would seek to undermine the ideals and principles that are at the very heart of our great nation.

Why the “National Popular Vote” scheme is unconstitutional

The U.S. Supreme Court says each state legislature has “plenary” (complete) power to decide how its state’s presidential electors are chosen.

But suppose a state legislature decided to raise cash by selling its electors to the highest bidder. Do you think the Supreme Court would uphold such a measure?

If your answer is “no,” then you intuitively grasp a basic principle of constitutional law—one overlooked by those proposing the “National Popular Vote Compact” (NPV).

NPV is a plan to change how we elect our president. Under the plan, each state signs a compact to award all its electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. The compact comes into effect when states with a majority of presidential electors sign on.

In assessing the constitutionality of NPV, you have to consider some of its central features. First, NPV abandons the idea that presidential electors represent the people of their own states. Second, it discards an election system balanced among interests and values in favor of one recognizing only national popularity. That popularity need not be high: A state joining the NPV compact agrees to assign its electors to even the winner of a tiny plurality in a multi-candidate election.

Third, because NPV states would have a majority of votes in the Electoral College, NPV would effectively repeal the Constitution’s provision for run-off elections in the House of Representatives.

Fourth, NPV requires each state’s election officer to apply the vote tabulations certified by other state election officers—even if those tabulations are known to be fraudulent or erroneous. Indeed, NPV would give state politicians powerful incentives to inflate, by fair means or foul, their vote totals relative to other states.

Don’t changes that sweeping require a constitutional amendment?

In answer to this question, NPV advocates point out that the Constitution seemingly gives state legislatures unlimited authority to decide how their electors are appointed. They further note that the Constitution recognizes the reserved power of states to make compacts with each other. Although the Constitution’s text requires that interstate compacts be approved by Congress, NPV advocates claim congressional approval of NPV is not necessary. They observe that in U.S. Steel v. Multistate Tax Comm’n (1978) the Supreme Court held that Congress must approve a compact only when the compact increases state power at the expense of federal power.

NPV advocates may be wrong about congressional approval. It is unclear that the justices would follow U.S. Steel’s ruling now. The Constitution’s language requiring congressional approval is crystal clear, and the court today is much more respectful of the Constitution’s text and historical meaning than it was in 1978. Moreover, you can make a good argument that U.S. Steel requires congressional approval for NPV because NPV would weaken federal institutions: It would (1) abolish the role of the U.S. House of Representatives in the electoral process and (2) alter the presidential election system without congressional involvement. Furthermore, even the U.S. Steel case suggested that compacts require congressional approval whenever they “impact . . . our federal structure.”

A more fundamental problem with NPV, however, is that with or without congressional approval it violates a central principle of constitutional law.

The Constitution recognizes two kinds of powers: (1) those reserved by the Tenth Amendment in the states by reason of state sovereignty (“reserved powers”) and (2) those created and granted by the Constitution itself (“delegated powers”). Reserved powers are, in James Madison’s words, “numerous and indefinite,” but delegated powers are “few and defined.”

A state’s power to enter into a compact with other states is reserved in nature, and it almost always involves other reserved powers, such as taxation and water use. Such was the compact examined by the Supreme Court in the U.S. Steel case.

As for delegated powers, the Constitution grants most of these to agents of the federal government. However, it also grants some to entities outside the federal government. Recipients include state legislatures, state governors, state and federal conventions, and presidential electors.

The scope of delegated powers is “defined” by the Constitution’s language, construed in light of its underlying purpose and its historical context. If state lawmakers or officers try to employ a delegated power in a way not sanctioned by its purpose and scope, the courts intervene.

For example, the courts often have voided efforts to exercise delegated powers in the constitutional amendment process in ways inconsistent with purpose or historical understanding. This is true even if the attempt superficially complies with the Constitution’s text.

Like a state legislature’s authority to act in the amendment process, its power to decide how electors are appointed is a delegated one. In exercising it, the legislature must comply with the overall purpose of the presidential election system and the historical understandings surrounding it. For example, the Founders, including those who approved the 12th amendment, designed the system to serve multiple interests, not merely candidate popularity. And they conceived of an elector as a person who acted on behalf of the people of his state—much like a legislator, but with more limited functions.

In deciding how electors are appointed, state lawmakers may choose among a range of procedures. But they have a constitutional duty to choose a method consistent with the electoral system’s purpose and design. Attempting to convert electors into agents of other states—like selling them to the highest bidder—would be an unconstitutional breach of public trust.

MatthewlovesAyn Loc: Ohio

You know, there was a dumb son-of-a-bitch that worked for my father about 60 years ago. Just a jerk in every way. One time my dad said, "Why Bruce is so dumb, he thinks he's smart." That describes you perfectly.

Elrond51 Loc: New Mexico

I would not put it past the current Republican Party to figure out how to game the system even worse than they already have.