electoral college
Political Science
(noun)
A body of electors empowered to elect someone to a particular office
U.S. History
Sociology
Examples of electoral college in the following topics:
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The Electoral College
- The Electoral College is the 538 person body that elects the President and the Vice President of the United States.
- The Electoral College consists of 538 electors who officially elect the President and Vice President of the United States.
- Only Maine and Nebraska award Electoral College votes on a proportional basis.
- Many proponents of the Electoral College see its negative effect on third parties as a good thing.
- This shows the influence of the Electoral College on the prominence of swing states, those with small populations but large Electoral College votes.
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The Nomination Campaign
- A number of electors, collectively known as the Electoral College, officially select the president.
- On Election Day, voters in each of the states and the District of Columbia cast ballots for these electors.
- Generally, the ticket that wins the most votes in a state wins all of that state's electoral votes, and thus has its slate of electors chosen to vote in the Electoral College.
- Electoral college map for the 2012, 2016 and 2020 United States presidential elections, using apportionment data released by the US Census Bureau.
- Describe the procedure by which the Electoral College indirectly elects the President
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The General Election Campaign
- Instead, votes are allocated indirectly through members of the Electoral College.
- Whichever candidate wins the majority of votes in the state receives that state's Electoral College votes.
- Electoral College votes are divided proportionally based on state population, meaning that larger states have more influence in the election than smaller ones .
- The most notorious swing states in recent years have been Florida and Ohio, since each is generally unpredictable, and each has a significant number of Electoral College electors.
- In the presidential general election, the winner is determined based on who receives the greatest number of votes in the Electoral College system.
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The Election of 1888
- In the election of 1888, President Grover Cleveland lost to Republican Benjamin Harrison in the Electoral College despite winning the popular vote.
- The economy was prosperous and the nation was at peace, but Cleveland lost reelection in the Electoral College, even though he won a plurality of the popular vote by a narrow margin.
- Harrison swept almost the entire North and Midwest, losing only Connecticut and New Jersey, but carried the swing states of New York and Indiana to achieve a majority of the electoral vote.
- Unlike the election of 1884, the power of the Tammany Hall political machine in New York City helped deny Cleveland the electoral votes of his home state.
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The Vice Presidency
- Constitutionally, the Vice President is indirectly elected by the people through the Electoral College to a four-year term of office.
- Electoral College.
- The creation of the Office of Vice President was a direct consequence of the Electoral College.
- Electoral College.
- The President of the Senate also presides over counting and presentation of the votes of the Electoral College.
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Voter Turnout
- Some studies show that a single vote in a voting scheme such as the Electoral College in the United States has an even lower chance of determining the outcome.
- The Electoral College is an example of an indirect election, consisting of 538 electors who officially elect the President and Vice President of the United States.
- Other studies claim that the Electoral College actually increases voting power.
- The Electoral College map shows the results of the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
- Nebraska split its electoral vote when Senator Obama won the electoral vote from Nebraska's 2nd congressional district; the state's other four electoral votes went to Senator McCain.
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The Election of 1824
- Electors were chosen by popular vote in eighteen states, while the six remaining states used the older system in which state legislatures chose electors.
- The Electoral College, however, was another matter.
- Of the 261 electoral votes, Jackson needed 131 or more to win but secured only 99.
- Because Jackson did not receive a majority vote from the Electoral College, the election was decided following the terms of the Twelfth Amendment, which stipulated that when a candidate did not receive a majority of electoral votes, the election went to the House of Representatives, where each state would provide one vote.
- This map of the Electoral College votes of 1824 illustrates the number of electoral votes allotted to each candidate in each state.
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The Election of 1796
- In 1796, voters only could cast ballots for electors in the Electoral College, not for the presidential candidates themselves, and not all electors publicly declared their political preferences.
- Some state legislatures even selected the members of the Electoral College.
- Moreover, the voting method in the Electoral College did not account for party tickets: The writers of the Constitution had not envisioned competing political factions.
- Jefferson received the second-highest number of electoral votes and was elected vice president according to the prevailing rules of electoral college voting.
- This map illustrates the 1796 presidential election results, with presidential electoral votes by state.
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The 2012 Presidential Election
- Requiring 270 electoral votes to win the election, Obama received 303 electoral votes, while Romney earned 206.
- While he lost the popular vote by a slight margin, a much greater margin in the electoral college necessitated his loss.
- While unlikely, both possessed the ballot access to mathematically win the majority of the Electoral College and, accordingly, the election.
- Census changed the apportionment of votes in the Electoral College, potentially changing the allocation of votes among swing states.
- Some states enacted new electoral laws in 2011.
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The 23rd Amendment
- The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution permits citizens in the District of Columbia to vote for Electors for President and Vice President.
- The 23rd Amendment would have been repealed by the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment, which proposed to give the District full representation in the United States Congress, full representation in the Electoral College system, and full participation in the process by which the U.S.
- A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.