How does electoral college operate

The meeting of the electors takes place on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December after the general election. The electors meet in their respective States, where they cast their votes for President and Vice President on separate ballots.

Members of the House and Senate meet in the House Chamber to conduct the official count of electoral votes. The Vice President, as President of the Senate, presides over the count and announces the results of the vote. The President-elect takes the oath of office and is sworn in as President of the United States on January 20th in the year following the general election.

The matter made its way to the Supreme Court and last summer. It made a ruling against rogue electors. They are chosen by the two parties in advance of the election, though the process varies from state to state. It is possible, though very unlikely, that the Republican and Democrat candidates could receive electoral votes each.

Instead of each legislator getting a vote, each state gets one vote only. The electoral college remains contentious. A Pew Research poll conducted in January found that 58 per cent of Americans are in favour of changing the constitution so that the president is elected based on the popular vote instead.

That was the case in , when Democrat Hillary Clinton received nearly 2. Another common complaint is that the electoral vote distribution means that voters in smaller states tend to have more of a say in the result on a per capita basis. There are partisan implications as well, since highly populated, reliably blue states like New York and California have a weaker impact on the election results relative to their population.

Not surprisingly, the Pew poll found Democrats were largely in favour of scrapping the college and Republicans were largely against it. For those who support the college process, the fact that states themselves have an impact is a feature, not a bug. Michael C. World Canada Local. After laying out other variations, including contingent voting and ranked-choice voting, that let voters express more nuanced preferences, Holzer concludes with a description of an effort that is underway right now, to effectively convert the Electoral College system into a nationwide popular vote.

Portsmouth Climate Festival — Portsmouth, Portsmouth. Edition: Available editions United Kingdom. Become an author Sign up as a reader Sign in. Missouri Republican Sen. Some people argue this gives too much sway to less-populous states. For example, Wyoming has three electoral votes and just , people, meaning that each elector potentially represents roughly , people. In a populous state like California, with 55 electoral votes, each elector represents , of its So, it is argued, each individual voter in Wyoming has more clout than each Californian.

Two states depart from the winner-take-all electors formula. Maine 4 electoral votes and Nebraska 5 electoral votes have adopted a more nuanced system, in order to more closely reflect local results. One elector is also awarded to the winner of the popular vote in each congressional district. The idea of a president being elected by popular vote was controversial when the Electoral College was created at the Constitutional Convention in Small states worried that more populous states would have a louder voice.

The founders began with a proposal called the Virginia Plan, which would have allowed Congress to choose a president. However, critics argued that the president would then be beholden to Congress, and that threatened the separation of powers the founders prized. The founders moved on to the concept of electors—third parties that could represent the states without also sitting in Congress. This avoided having a permanent body of electors that could be influenced or corrupted.