BORN OF COMPROMISE and enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, the Electoral College isn't a place. It's a temporary voting body that elects the president of the United States. When voters select their presidential and vice-presidential candidates on Election Day, they're actually choosing the members of this body who will cast votes on their behalf in the days and weeks after the election.
For the past 233 years, this confusing and contentious institution has split opinions and overseen some truly rocky presidential elections. It has elected five presidents who didn't win a majority of American votes and resulted in one tie. And though most electors vote for their pledged candidates, some have historically gone back on their promises.
Every four years, debate revives over the efficacy, equality, and even necessity of this electoral system. Here's what you need to know about how it came about, how it works, and the proposals for Electoral College reform.
Electoral College and the US Constitution
The Electoral College is the result of a series of compromises struck during the grueling Constitutional Convention of 1787. Delegates quibbled over, and discarded, a variety of ways to elect a president. Some believed citizens should vote directly while others argued that Congress should decide. Still others insisted this would give the national legislative body too much power and that the decision should lie with the states. But that was contentious, too, because delegates couldn't agree on what role, if any, state legislators and governors should play in the process.
Giving states electoral power also raised the question of how less populous states would be represented. This was a sticking point among Southern slaveholding states, which lacked the population of their northern neighbors. Delegates from those states insisted that their enslaved residents, who were not considered citizens and would not be allowed to vote, be counted for the purpose of allocating electoral votes.
Finally, the framers hit on a solution that balanced all of these factors. Article II of the Constitution holds that each state should appoint electors equal to the number of its U.S. senators and representatives. While the size of the House of Representatives would be based on populationâ€"as determined by the U.S. Censusâ€"each state received two senators to give a small bump in power to less populous states.
The question of how to count enslaved people resulted in the notorious Three-Fifths Compromise, which determined that three out of every five slaves would be counted as persons for congressional representation, taxation, and the Electoral College.
One point that the Founding Fathers didn't consider during their deliberations was how to distinguish between ballots for the president and vice president. This flaw would become obvious in the nation's fourth election in 1800, which resulted in a tie between presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr. The contest was thrown to the U.S. House of Representatives, which ultimately selected Jefferson after deadlocking 35 times. In 1804, the 12th Amendment was passed to create separate votes for presidents and vice presidents in the Electoral College.
Then there was the matter of who was qualified to be an elector. The Constitution originally provided only that electors couldn't be members of Congress or federal employees and left it up to the states to decide who they would choose and how.
In 1868, however, the 14th Amendment added a requirement that electors can't have participated in a rebellion against the United States or have aided its enemies. More notably, it also negated the Three-Fifths Compromise by conferring citizenship on formerly enslaved people at the end of the Civil War, ensuring that each individual would be counted.
How states allocate electoral votes
States' approaches to their electors varied from the start. At first, Connecticut, South Carolina, and Georgia's state legislatures appointed electors directly, while other states let citizens decide. But as political factions grew, states' procedures changed and slowly shifted this role to political parties. Now, political parties select a slate of people in each state who will stand as electors for the party's candidate.
In the 2020 election, there will be 538 electors. To win the election, a candidate must win a majorityâ€"270 electoral votes.
State rules vary on how to allocate electoral votes. In the winner-take-all system, which is in effect in 48 states and the District of Columbia, all of the state's electoral votes are allocated to the slate of electors chosen by the political party of the candidate who won the state's popular vote.
Maine and Nebraska assign electoral votes by congressional district, a system that has resulted in one split election in each state. In 2008, Democrat Barack Obama won the electoral vote in the Nebraska congressional district that covers Omaha and its suburbs, while Republican John McCain won the rest of the state. In 2016, Republican Donald Trump won the electoral vote in the less populous district that covers most of Maine, and Democrat Hillary Clinton won the other district and the state's popular vote.
In 2019, Maine became the only state to adopt a ranked-choice system in which voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority, the votes are then tabulated in rounds, and the lowest-ranked candidates are eliminated until only two are left. In the final round, the candidate with 50 percent or more of the vote wins.
Counting the votes
Though a candidate usually declares victory or concedes on Election Night, the returns reported by the media immediately after the election are only preliminary. The official count comes later, when the electors cast their official votes.
After Election Day, which takes place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, states use the remainder of November and December to gather, certify, and send their electors' formal votes for president and vice president to the National Archives and Records Administration, which administers the Electoral College.
The votes are counted in a joint session of Congress on January 6. The sitting vice presidentâ€"who is also president of the Senateâ€"presides over the session, opening the votes, reading them aloud, and passing them to two 'tellers' from each chamber who count them. If one candidate receives 270 or more electoral votes, the vice president announces the resultsâ€"including, sometimes, their own win or loss.
Members of Congress can object to individual electors' returns or states' overall returns. If a written objection is signed by at least one senator and one member of the House of Representatives, it bumps the session to a recess. The two houses then debate the objections and vote on whether to accept or reject them. Both houses must agree to reject the returns to exclude them from the final tally.
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by ERIN BLAKEMORE
Source : https://taarifa.rw/understanding-the-us-electoral-college/
