In this close race between Al Gore and George W. Bush – the closest presidential election since 1876, when Rutherford B. Hayes became president – Bush won 271 electoral votes and Gore garnered 266. Many do not realize, however, that the selection for the next President and Vice President is not finalized until months after the General Election. And of course when the votes are being counted. So if you live in NY and vote for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, you are actually casting your vote to send a Democratic elector to the Electoral College.
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To understand why requires a brief primer on the electoral college system and the current state of the presidential race. The District of Columbia, which has no representation in Congress, is awarded three electors, the same number as the state with the least electoral votes.
The “winner-take-all” format is disheartening to some voters in one-sided states. But according to the National Archives, 99 percent of electors through USA history have voted for their party’s candidate, and none of the dissenters – known as “faithless electors” – has ever changed the result of an election. Its victor takes all.
So. Win a state by just one vote, and you win all of its electoral votes (unless you live in Nebraska or ME, which divvy up their votes a little differently). “If it’s only one state with 11 electoral votes, and the margin is 40 electoral votes, we could probably be safe in calling an election night unofficial victor”. In Texas, which has the second highest electoral votes at 38, Republicans edge out Democrats.
As Election Day nears, almost 40 percent of Americans have already cast their ballots by mail, and right now, Five Thirty Eight predicts there is only a 0.5 percent chance of a tie in the electoral college between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Yet, since he has reinvigorated the conservative Republican base, there is uncertainty about who will win, precisely because nobody knows who will turn out to vote on November 8.
This year there are 469 seats in the United States House of Representatives and Senate that are up for grabs. Each state receives one vote. Four years ago, Obama went to Twitter with his first reaction once the votes clearly pointed toward his re-election.
Dr. Max J. Skidmore, a Curators’ Distinguished Professor and Thomas Jefferson Fellow in the Political Science Department at UMKC, thinks the chances of the upcoming election ending in Congress are very slim.
Clinton still leads the majority of national polls, although the presidential race appears to have tightened considerably in the past week.
For now, polls indicate Hillary Clinton will win enough key states to win the electoral college vote, according to FiveThirtyEight and the New York Times Upshot blog.
Some of you, including myself, have railed against the Electoral College. Keep an eye on the Utah vote for independent candidate Evan McMullin, who’s apparently drawing significant support there and giving Trump heartburn in a state that should be a lock for him.
In order to win the oval office, one candidate needs to win 270 votes in the electoral college. To date, no elector has been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged, and a “faithless elector” has never swung an election.
Electors are chosen mostly through political parties.
The Electoral College, despite its university-sounding name, isn’t actually a place.
It is possible that either candidate could lose the popular vote but still be elected as President but highly unlikely. The 11 p.m. batch of states includes big kahuna California, with 55 electoral votes. This is more people than have ever voted for any candidate running for president of the United States. New Mexico has 5 electoral votes and Clinton is leading 40.5% -32%. Pollsters disagree as to whether people who normally do not vote are more likely to do so out of fear or enthusiasm.
On the afternoon of January 6, unless the date is changed, the vice president, Joe Biden, will open the electoral votes before a joint session of the new Congress where they will be counted.
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One of the most fascinating aspects of democracy is that, despite all the technology available for polling and campaigning, it’s the people who have their say on election day.
