United States Electoral College

The United States Electoral College is the electoral college that chooses the President and Vice President of the United States at the conclusion of each presidential election. The Electoral College was established by Article Two, Section One of the United States Constitution and votes every four years with electors from each state. The electoral process was modified in 1804 with the ratification of the 12th Amendment and again in 1961 with the ratification of the 23rd Amendment.

How it works

Election for President of the United States and Vice President of the United States is indirect, for which voting takes place every four years on Election Day. Although ballots typically list the names of the presidential candidates, voters within the 50 states and the District of Columbia actually choose electors when they vote for President and Vice President. These presidential electors in turn cast the official votes for those two offices.

In most states and in the District of Columbia, the plurality winner of the popular vote for President within that state receives all of the state's electors, while all other candidates receive none. Only in Maine and Nebraska does the election follow a model more closely based on Congressional Elections: For each congressional district in those two states, the plurality winner of that district receives one district elector ("Representative-like" elector, so to speak), while the two at-large electors ("Senator-like" electors) are given to the plurality winner of the whole state. This method has been used in Maine since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996, though neither has ever split its electoral votes.

Each state's electors meet in their respective state capitals in December, 41 days following the election, at which time they cast their electoral votes. Thus the Electoral College never meets as one body. The electoral votes are then sealed and sent to the President of the Senate (i.e. the sitting Vice President of the United States), who retains them until the new Congress convenes in January. At that time, the votes are opened and counted in the presence of both houses of Congress. The candidate who receives a majority of electoral votes for President becomes President, and the candidate who receives a majority of electoral votes for Vice President becomes Vice President.

If no candidate for President receives an absolute electoral majority, then the new House of Representatives is required to go into session immediately to vote for President. In this case, the House of Representatives chooses from the three candidates who received the most electoral votes. The House votes en-bloc by state for this purpose (that is, one vote per state, which is determined by the majority decision of the delegation from that state; if a state delegation is evenly split that state is considered as abstaining). This vote would be repeated if necessary until one candidate receives the votes of more than half the state delegations—at least 26 state votes, given the current number, 50, of states in the union.

If no candidate for Vice President receives an absolute majority of electoral votes, then the United States Senate must do the same, with the top two vote getters for that office as candidates. The Senate votes in the normal manner in this case, not by States. It is unclear if the sitting Vice President would be entitled to cast his usual tie-breaking vote if the Senate should be evenly split on the matter.

If the House of Representatives has not chosen a winner in time for the inauguration (noon on January 20), then the Constitution of the United States specifies that the new Vice President becomes Acting President until the House selects a President. If the winner of the Vice Presidential election is not known by then either, then under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the Speaker of the House of Representatives would become Acting President until the House selects a President or the Senate selects a Vice President.

It is unclear what would happen if a President has been selected but the Senate remains deadlocked on a Vice President past Inauguration Day. On the one hand, the Twelfth Amendment specifies that the Senate should choose the Vice President, and it does not admit of a time limit on the selection process. On the other hand, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment allows the President to nominate a Vice President if a vacancy should occur.

As of 2006, the House of Representatives has elected the President on two occasions, in 1801 and in 1825. The Senate has chosen the Vice President once, in 1837.

Allotting electors to the states

The number of electors assigned to each state is equal to the total number of Senators (two) and Representatives that the state has in Congress (at least one; thus, no state has fewer than three electors). No federal officer or employee, including Senators and Representatives, may serve as an elector, though electors may be elected state officials, party leaders, or persons who have a personal or political affiliation with a Presidential candidate. With the adoption of the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1961, the District of Columbia is treated as a state for purposes of electoral votes, but can in no event choose more electors than the least populous state (however that latter clause does not currently make any difference; even if it did not exist, there would not be enough population in the District by a wide margin to give it any more than the minimum three electors).

There are currently 538 electoral votes available in each presidential election (100 Senators + 435 Representatives + 3 votes for D.C. = 538 electoral votes). Therefore, candidates must receive a majority of 270 electoral votes to become President and Vice President. In theory even in a pure two-party race, a candidate could win the election by receiving only 23% of all popular votes, if these were distributed in an ideal way (for him/her)—i.e. if they won enough small states by the narrowest possible margin and got no votes at all in the larger states. The fact that there is an even number of electoral votes available since the passing of the 23rd Amendment makes a 269/269 tie conceivable, although none has occurred yet. In that case the election would be thrown into the House of Representatives even though only two candidates received any electoral votes.

In most states, the names of the electors do not appear on the ballot at all; instead, a notation on the ballot indicates that voters are selecting the "electors for" followed by the names of the candidates for President and for Vice President. All but two states (Maine and Nebraska) use a winner-take-all system. The candidate with a plurality of votes gains all of the state's electors. The two exceptions allot the electors within the state (though, in every election since the states chose the allotment method, the winning candidate has always managed to gain all the electors). In many states, the electors are legally free to cast their votes for anyone they choose, although in some states to vote for someone other than their pledged candidate is a misdemeanor, in others a felony, and in a few it is merely illegal without penalty.

In practice, however, electors very rarely vote for a candidate they are not pledged to (as they are chosen by the political parties specifically for voting for that candidate), except as a form of protest vote. Individuals choosing to do this are often referred to as "faithless electors" about which, more below. It is uncommon to know in advance that an elector may be inclined to vote in such a fashion, and such deviations usually come as a surprise. Of course, if an Electoral College tie were looming on the horizon after Election Day, more electors might see a reason to switch sides, simply to avoid the election being thrown into the House of Representatives.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30