The Structure of the Electoral College

The Structure of the Electoral College

The Electoral College consists of 538 electors who “pledge” to cast their individual state's vote in favor of the presidential candidate supported by the people's vote. The structure of the Electoral College is outlined in "Article II of the constitution and was modified by the 12th Amendment (Longley).

Each state is given a number of electors equal to its number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. An additional electoral seat is afforded to each state for every two U.S. Senate seats held by that state. Two hundred seventy electoral votes must be in favor of one candidate in order to secure the election. The number of seats in the House of Representatives held by each individual state is determined by the state census. Therefore, as a states population fluctuates, so does the number of seats in the House of Representatives reserved by that state.

The December 2010 U.S. census poll constitutes the necessary changes that must be made regarding the number of seats in the House of Representatives granted to each state. The changes in the number of seats and electoral votes within each state will re-structure the “playing field” in the 2012 presidential election (Ramsay).

Kristi Keck Ramsay of CNN reports that the following states will receive additional electoral votes in the upcoming 2012 election: Alabama, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington will all receive one, Texas will receive four, and Georgia will receive two additional votes.

According to the census, the following states will be losing electoral votes, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania will lose one vote, and New York and Ohio will lose two votes.

The electoral vote is the ultimate factor in the election of the U.S. president. Although the electoral vote and the people’s vote tend to coincide, it is possible for a candidate to lose the people’s vote and still be elected if they win the deciding electoral vote. A candidate may win the election without receiving a single vote in 39 states, popular or electoral, by wining the popular vote in 11 of these 12 states: California, New York, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia. The combined electoral votes of 11 of the 12 states listed above account for the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidential election (Longley).

One example of a presidential election resulting in the election of a candidate that lost the popular vote occurred during the election of Benjamin Harrison. Robert Longley reports, “in 1888 there were a total of 401 electoral votes available with 201 needed to win. Republican Benjamin Harrison, with 5,439,853 popular votes won 233 electoral votes. His main opponent, Democrat Grover Cleveland, won the popular vote with 5,540,309 votes, but won only 168 electoral votes. Harrison was elected president.”

-Nicholas Angelis

Links:

1.Robert Longley. "The Electoral College System." http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepoliticalsystem/a/electcollege_2.htm.

2. Kristi Keck Ramsay. "Consensus Numbers Could Tighten Playing Field for Obama." http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/21/census-numbers-could-tighten-playing-field-for-obama/?iref=allsearch.