Does your vote for president count at the polls?

Yes and no, thanks to our found­ing fathers

By Randa Wagner -

Ahhhh, elec­tion time. The sound of radio and tele­vi­sion ads res­onate through the air­waves. Can­di­dates that were once well-mannered pub­lic ser­vants sling mud, hurl accu­sa­tions, and dredge up moral and polit­i­cal errs from eons ago. Polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness is nowhere to be found as states­men who — iron­i­cally — con­sider them­selves Chris­tians, sink to new lows in the pur­suit of votes.

Does the mind-blowing amount of money spent on these cam­paigns and the finger-pointing jus­tify the out­come? If you’re run­ning for any seat other than U.S. pres­i­dent, per­haps. Oth­er­wise, the cam­paign speeches are pri­mar­ily a pitch for the ‘state elec­tors,’ not the gen­eral population.

The pres­i­den­tial seat is selected through the Elec­toral Col­lege, which was cre­ated over 200 years ago as a com­pro­mise for the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion process. Some politi­cians at that time believed a pop­u­lar elec­tion was too reck­less; some objected to giv­ing Con­gress the power to select the pres­i­dent. The agree­ment was to set up an Elec­toral Col­lege sys­tem that allowed vot­ers to vote for elec­tors, who would then cast their votes for can­di­dates (a sys­tem described in Arti­cle II, sec­tion 1 of the Constitution).

How some­one becomes an elec­tor is not the same process across the board. It can dif­fer from state to state. Gen­er­ally, the two most com­mon ways are:

- The elec­tor is nom­i­nated by his or her state party com­mit­tee (per­haps to reward many years of ser­vice to the party).

- The elec­tor “cam­paigns” for a spot and the deci­sion is made dur­ing a vote held at the state’s party convention.

There really aren’t any required qual­i­fi­ca­tions to be an elec­tor. Accord­ing to the National Archives and Records (NARA) Web site, “the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion con­tains very few pro­vi­sions relat­ing to the qual­i­fi­ca­tions of elec­tors.” How­ever, an elec­tor can­not be a Rep­re­sen­ta­tive or Sen­a­tor, a high-ranking U.S. offi­cial in a posi­tion of “trust or profit”, or some­one who has “engaged in insur­rec­tion or rebel­lion” against the U.S.

Usu­ally, elec­tors are peo­ple who are highly polit­i­cally active in their party or con­nected some­how to the polit­i­cal arena, such as: activists, party lead­ers, elected offi­cials of the state and even peo­ple who have ties (polit­i­cal and/or per­sonal) to the Pres­i­den­tial candidates.

The two most com­mon ways some­one becomes an elec­tor are:

- The elec­tor is nom­i­nated by his or her state party com­mit­tee (per­haps to reward many years of ser­vice to the party).

- The elec­tor “cam­paigns” for a spot and the deci­sion is made dur­ing a vote held at the state’s party convention.

Any intel­li­gent, think­ing per­son can deduce the prob­lems that come with that selec­tion process, as well as the fact the pres­i­dent is not selected by pop­u­lar vote. Four times in the past, it was not “the peo­ple have spo­ken,” but more than 500 elec­tors who cast their votes a month later.

In 48 states, a vote for the can­di­dates for Pres­i­dent and Vice-President named on the bal­lot is a vote for their elec­tors and is known as the “winner-take-all sys­tem.” Most of the time, elec­tors cast their votes for the can­di­date who has received the most votes in that par­tic­u­lar state.

How­ever, there have been times when elec­tors have voted con­trary to the people’s deci­sion, which is entirely legal. There is no fed­eral law that requires an elec­tor to vote accord­ing to to their respec­tive party. Elec­tors who cast their votes with­out fol­low­ing the pop­u­lar vote or their party are called “faith­less electors.”

Sev­eral states have cre­ated laws to enforce an elector’s pledge to his or her party vote or the pop­u­lar vote, and the state of North Car­olina charges a fine of $10,000 to faith­less electors.

That sounds like a lot of money to us com­mon folk, but it’s a pit­tance to a can­di­date who has spent mil­lions on their cam­paign and has even richer finan­cial back­ers will­ing to spare no expense to get their can­di­date in office.

So, for every office except the top spot, your vote counts as it stands. As for your pres­i­den­tial vote, well, you’ll know on Jan­u­ary 6, 2013.

Why there is an Elec­toral Col­lege and how it works

By SETH BORENSTEIN, Asso­ci­ated Press Sci­ence Writer

Pres­i­dents are elected not by national pop­u­lar vote but by an 18th cen­tury con­sti­tu­tional com­pro­mise called the Elec­toral College.

How It Formed

When framers were draft­ing the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion, there were two com­pet­ing ideas on how to elect the pres­i­dent. One group said Con­gress should do it; the other said it should be a national vote of eli­gi­ble cit­i­zens. There also were dis­putes over how much slaves should count in rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Con­gress and over how power would be dis­trib­uted between small and large states. The com­pro­mise became part of the sec­ond arti­cle of the Con­sti­tu­tion, although the words “Elec­toral Col­lege” are not included. The elec­tors pick the pres­i­dent and vice president.

Vote Totals

Each state gets one elec­toral vote for each of its rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the House and Sen­ate. The Dis­trict of Colum­bia gets three votes. All told, there are 538 votes in the Elec­toral Col­lege. A can­di­date must have at least 270 to win. Except for Maine and Nebraska, states award all their elec­toral votes to the can­di­date who wins the state. In Maine and Nebraska, votes are appor­tioned by con­gres­sional dis­tricts. So in 2008, even though John McCain won Nebraska’s statewide pop­u­lar vote, Barack Obama won the 2nd Con­gres­sional Dis­trict and earned one of the state’s five elec­toral votes.

How It Works

Each state’s elec­tors will meet on Dec. 17 in their home states and cast their votes for pres­i­dent and vice pres­i­dent. Con­gress will meet on Jan. 6, 2013, to con­duct an offi­cial tally of the elec­toral votes. Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden will pre­side and declare the win­ner.

Prob­lem Areas

If no can­di­date gets at least 270 elec­toral votes, the elec­tion goes to the newly elected House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Each state del­e­ga­tion in the House gets one vote, and a can­di­date must win a major­ity of the states to be elected pres­i­dent. This hap­pened in 1824, when Andrew Jack­son won the most pop­u­lar votes and the most elec­toral votes, but four can­di­dates split the elec­toral votes and no one received a major­ity. The race went to the House and John Quincy Adams, who came in sec­ond, was cho­sen as pres­i­dent. Three other times, can­di­dates won the Elec­toral Col­lege even though they lost the pop­u­lar vote — in 1876, 1888 and 2000.

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Oct 6 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.