The Electoral College: How it Works Quiz

Answer: A slate of presidential/vice presidential electors

Although most states list only the names of the candidates and their political parties on the ballot, the purpose of the November election is actually to choose which slate of electors will cast the state's electoral votes when the Electoral College meets in December. Each political party - as well as independent candidates - chooses a slate of electors and submits the list to the state prior to the November election.

The slates generally consist of loyal party members who are expected to vote for their party's candidate.

Although there have been numerous instances in which "faithless electors" failed to vote for their party's choice, these cases did not affect the outcome of the elections.

Answer: As many as the state has senators and representatives in Congress

Every state has two senators, regardless of the state's population. The number of representatives each state has in the House of Representatives is based on the state's population, with every state having at least one representative. So every state, no matter how small its population, has at least three votes in the Electoral College. (The 23rd Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1964, gives the District of Columbia three electoral votes.)

Answer: There was a tie vote in the Electoral College

The original Constitution mandated that each elector cast two votes for two different candidates, but there was no distinction as to which candidate the elector preferred for president and which they preferred for vice president. The candidate who received the most electoral votes, as long as it was a majority of the total number of electors, would be president. The candidate receiving the second most electoral votes would be vice president.

In 1800 the Democratic-Republican Party chose Thomas Jefferson as its presidential candidate and Aaron Burr as its vice presidential candidate. In order to effect this result in the Electoral College, the Democratic-Republican electors were instructed to cast one vote for Jefferson, and all but one elector was to cast his second vote for Burr. Due to a failure in communication (or possibly a conspiracy by Burr's supporters, although historians disagree on this), all the Democratic-Republican electors voted for both Jefferson and Burr, resulting in a 73-73 tie. The election was thrown into the House of Representatives, which chose Jefferson for president, giving the vice presidency to Burr by default.

To prevent this scenario from occurring again, the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1804, mandating that electors explicitly indicate which candidate they want for president and which candidate they want for vice president.

Answer: Members of Congress

Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution states that "no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector." This is the sole restriction placed on who can be a presidential elector.

Theoretically, a presidential candidate, as long as he isn't currently employed by the state or national government, can be an elector and vote for himself.

Answer: No candidate received a majority in the Electoral College

The Constitution mandates that, in order to win the presidency, a candidate must receive not merely more electoral votes than the other candidates (a plurality); he must receive a majority vote in the Electoral College (equal to more than half the total number of electors). Four candidates received electoral votes in the election of 1824.

Although Jackson received more popular and electoral votes than the others, he did not gain the required majority in the Electoral College. When this happens, the House of Representatives must choose the president from among the top three electoral vote-getters. They chose John Quincy Adams, who had received the second most electoral votes. (There is speculation that this was the result of collusion between Adams and Speaker of the House Henry Clay. Clay was to influence the House to elect Adams, and Adams was to reward Clay by appointing him secretary of state. Adams did in fact give the appointment to Clay, but historians disagree as to whether there was a pre-existing deal between the two.)

Answer: Federalism

Federalism is a system in which the government is based upon a federation of states. Although the people also have a voice in the government, under federalism a significant share of power is allocated to the individual states which have banded together to form the nation.

As an example, under the original Constitution, United States senators were elected by state legislatures rather than directly by the people. (This was changed in 1913 by the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment.) Under the Electoral College system, each state appoints representatives who choose the president and vice president, rather than having the people elect them directly.

Answer: The electoral votes of three states were disputed

Republican Hayes' opponent in the 1876 election was Democrat Samuel Tilden. Tilden won the popular vote, but the electoral votes of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina were disputed. Republicans had a strong hold on these southern state governments in the era of post-Civil War Reconstruction, and, although these states used popular voting to select presidential electors, the Constitution gives ultimate authority for selecting presidential electors to state legislatures.

The Republican-controlled legislatures of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina ignored the popular vote results and submitted two sets of electoral votes to Congress: one favoring Tilden and the other favoring Hayes. Congress, which was also controlled by Republicans, set up a commission, composed of eight Republicans and seven Democrats, to resolve the issue. The commission voted strictly along party lines, awarding all the disputed electoral votes to Hayes. This gave Hayes enough electoral votes to win the presidency.

Answer: An elector may not vote for two people both of whom live in the same state as the elector

The Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution states: "The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves". The Constitution places no other restrictions on how electors may vote.

Answer: The House of Representatives

When the election of the president falls to the House of Representatives, it must choose from among the top three electoral vote-getters. Voting is done by state, with each state delegation casting one vote, and a majority of all the states is necessary to elect the president. If no candidate for vice president receives a majority in the Electoral College, the Senate must choose from among the top two electoral vote-getters, each senator casting one vote, and again a majority of all the states is necessary to make a selection.

Answer: Electoral votes are not allocated in direct proportion to state populations

In the 1888 election, Grover Cleveland won the popular vote over his opponent, Benjamin Harrison. In the election of 2000, Al Gore was the popular vote winner, receiving half a million more popular votes than his opponent, George Bush. But both Harrison and Bush won the electoral vote and the presidency. These anomalies were the result of the way in which the Electoral College system allocates votes to states.

If every vote cast by the general public had the same proportional influence in the Electoral College, the winner of the popular vote would always be the winner in the Electoral College. But simple arithmetic shows that this is not the case. Each state casts as many electoral votes as it has members in Congress. Although representation in the House of Representatives is based on population, every state has two senators, regardless of its population. This results in a disproportion between a state's population and its influence in the Electoral College, which is especially apparent when comparing small and large states.

For example, in the election of 2000, California voters cast approximately 10,800,000 popular votes for president and cast 54 votes in the Electoral College. Wyoming voters cast about 213,000 popular votes and three electoral votes. So California cast one electoral vote for every 200,000 popular voters, while Wyoming cast one electoral vote for every 71,000 popular voters, giving each Wyoming voter almost 3 times more influence in the Electoral College than each California voter. Although the disproportion rarely affects the outcome of a presidential election, the possibility remains that it may have that effect from time to time, as it did in the elections of 1888 and 2000.