What is The Electoral College?

The election is over(YAY!!), and we know who is America's leader is for the next 4 years. Voters have tallied their ballots for that result, but do we really know how that vote was interpreted? The Electoral College manages the vote for President. But how?

It is not a college at all, but rather a process to elect The President of the United States of America. The Electoral Vote consists of 538 possible votes for President, and is based on votes in the U.S. Congress- 435 for Representatives and 100 for Senators(2 in each state), and 3 votes for the District of Columbia.

Essentially, the popular vote in a state is tallied, and upon that result, the electors vote based on those popular results. Each party on a state's ballot has electors, who as a rule, act faithfully in respect to the popular vote. Most states operate the process as "winner take all", meaning if a candidate wins the popular vote in a particular state, the candidate gets all of the Electoral votes for that state.

Two states, Maine and Nebraska, employ the "Congressional" method of allocating those elector votes. The Congressional method selects an elector from each Congressional District(popular vote) and has two electors based on statewide popular vote.

The procedure itself was implemented by the Founding Fathers at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. After a lengthy debate, study, and brainstorming, the founders signed into law the use of "Electors" to elect a President.

The main reasons for this kind of vote are two-fold. The first reason was about shortcomings of the popular vote, those being discrepancies in voter population. The south had many more slaves than the north and therefore would be at a disadvantage in a popular vote. The other reason was general population, as the founders wanted equal representation and did not want a more populated state to have unequal manipulative power.

The states have differing methods of electing electors. Some are elected prior to the parties' conventions, some by popular vote, and others nominated by the party itself. The electors are essentially required to vote as the population did, and some states have laws and consequences regarding a faithful vote from electors.

Electoral Map

In the map above, notice the split-up votes for Maine and Nebraska. The circled votes are Congressional votes.

So, as you can see, America votes democratically at the state level and uses a representative to vote federally. That process is what is called The Electoral College.