THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

A Worksheet About How to Win the Presidency

How do you

campaign to be

President of the

United States of America?

Every Presidential campaign tries its best to put forward the best possible version of their own candidates – while diminishing the reputation of their rivals. How?

Radio interview

Television interview

Speeches

Ads

Direct Mail

Internet, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

Press Conferences and Press Releases

Stickers and Buttons

Billboards and Posters

Swing Voters: People who are still undecided – even after all that campaigning.

The Battleground States:

PennsylvaniaOhioFloridaVirginiaColoradoIowaNevadaNorth Carolina

States like California or Texas are very important to the Presidential campaign; however, they are not considered battleground states. California is notoriously liberal and almost always goes to the Democratic candidate. Texas is notoriously conservative and votes Republican. Candidates are far, far more concerned with state that “swing” back and forth between parties depending on the candidates:

Presidential Debates: Do they matter?

Although they are usually very fun to watch, debates tend to reinforce what people already believe about the candidates. Only rarely do Presidential Debates change the outcome of the election.

The Presidential

Electors

Presidential Electors are the people

who actually vote for President as a

result of the elections. They are

supposed to vote for the people

they are committed to today;

however, the Founding Fathers

probably expected that these men

would “use their own judgment”

and select the people they

considered the most qualified for

the job – let the voters be damned!

Seriously, who are these people?

Choosing Electors

Except for in Maine and in

Nebraska, Presidential Electors are

selected in winner-take-all majority

rule elections. In other words, if

50.1% of the voters in Virginia vote

for the Democrat and 49.9% vote

for the Republican, the Democratic

Candidate wins all of the Electoral

College Votes.

When does the actual

Electoral College

Vote take place?

• It takes place in January, just a few weeks after the Presidential Election has taken place.

Three Flaws of

the Electoral

College System

1. The Winner of the popular vote does not always win the Presidency! Andrew Jackson (1824), Samuel Tilden (1876), and Al Gore (2000) can all tell you a sad story about this!

2. The electors who pledge to vote for a particular candidate can actually vote for whoever they want to!

3. If no candidate wins a majority of the votes, the House of Representatives determines the winner of the Election – if they can!

The Winner Take All System Distorts

the Popular

VoteAlthough California has the most electoral college votes and Wyoming and Washington, D.C. have the fewest the people of Washington, D.C. and Wyoming actually have greater relative power than the people of California! (California 1:410, 647 against Wyoming 1: 134,783)

Wyoming Washington,

DCNorth DakotaSouth Dakota

MontanaAlaska

The Electoral College awards each state it’s total number of legislators in votes. Two senators + the number of representatives in the House of Representatives.

For smaller states, this means they get at least three electoral college votes – even if their population is very, very small compared to other states.

Hence, state like the ones listed to the left have disproportionately MORE INFLUENCE over the outcome of the election.

For the most part, this gives rural votes an advantage in Presidential contests. (All but Washington DC are rural states.)

Al Gore lost the 2000 Presidential Election…

ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTERS HAVE CHANGED THEIR VOTES IN THE PAST!

Can Electoral College Voters Change their Allegiances and Vote for Another Candidate?

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DECIDES ELECTIONS THAT END WITH NO WINNER. THIS HAPPENED IN BOTH 1824 AND, SORT-OF, IN 1876.

Who determines the President if no one wins a majority of the Electoral College?

Alternative Plans to

the Electoral

College System

1. The District or Proportional Plan – Two Electors would be bound to vote for whatever candidate won a majority of the popular vote; however, the remaining electors would vote for the winner of the particular districts they represented.

2. The Direct Popular Election – This is a plan to ban the Electoral College all together and determine the winner of the Presidency based exclusively on the popular vote.

3. The National Popular Vote Plan – Each state legislature would pass a law pledging to award all of the state’s Electoral College votes to the winner of the popular vote. This plan would go into effect as soon as 270 Electoral College votes worth of state’s legislatures approved of the plan.

The Ten Winners:

1. California2. Texas3. New York4. Florida5. Pennsylvania6. Illinois7. Ohio8. Michigan9. North Carolina10. New Jersey11. Georgia

The Seven Least:

1. Alaska2. Montana3. Wyoming 4. North Dakota5. South Dakota6. Delaware7. Vermont8. Washington, DC*

Virginia’s Electoral College Votes:

13

The Shortest Route to

Victory in the

Electoral College

You need 270 states to win the Presidential Election, and you can acquire those votes by winning in as few as eleven states in the United States:

1. California2. Texas3. New York4. Florida5. Pennsylvania6. Illinois7. Ohio8. Michigan9. North Carolina10. New Jersey11. Georgia

This short list would win you 271 Electoral College votes and the Presidency – the other 39 states and the District of Columbia be damned!