Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore, despite having lost the popular vote. President Donald Trump also lost the popular vote while winning the Electoral College to defeat Hillary Clinton in This is how it works, and how it will come into play in the race:. Nearly six weeks after Americans voted Joe Biden the next president, the Electoral College is meeting Monday, December 14, and their votes will almost certainly make President Donald Trump's electoral loss official.
Here's a look at the Electoral College results so far:. For example —. Members of Congress and high-level federal employees are barred from being electors. The public casts ballots for presidential and vice presidential candidates. Though most ballots have only candidate names, voters actually choose groups of electors.
The goal is to have two parties representing the centers of their respective platforms. Supporters of this theory suggest that extremists would have more incentive to campaign if the elections were based solely on popular vote, because if runoff elections were required to win the presidency, parties would tend toward more radical platforms to gain more support.
As a requirement by the federal system of the United States, certain responsibilities must be left up to the states when it comes to representation in the federal government. The structure of the Electoral College provides the states the ability to determine the outcome of presidential elections, due to its similar setup to the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate , balancing the power of smaller states with that of the most populous.
There are three possible ways a presidential candidate could lose the popular vote but still be elected as president. Since a candidate with a majority of the popular vote can still lose a presidential election, some argue it creates a disincentive to participate in the presidential election. No matter how high the voter turnout is, the state still receives the same amount of electoral votes for a presidential candidate. Others do not believe this is an issue because of the other offices at stake during any particular election day, from state offices to U.
House and Senate seats. Because each state has a minimum of three electoral votes, votes from those in the least populated states count more toward the electoral vote than votes from those in more populous states.
For instance, in , the seven least populated states combined to count for as many electoral votes as Florida , yet the total population of those states was less than that of Florida. Another example of the failure to provide an accurate reflection of the population is when it comes to third party candidates.
If a third party candidate does not carry a majority in any state, they could carry a significant minority of the popular vote throughout the country, but they may not get a single electoral vote in the election.
On July 6, , the United States Supreme Court issued rulings in two connected cases that upheld the constitutionality of penalties for faithless electors. Chiafalo v. Washington and Colorado Department of State v. Baca were consolidated when originally granted review by the court. On March 10, , the cases were no longer consolidated but remained linked.
In Chiafalo v. Washington , the state of Washington fined electors after they voted contrary to Washington state law requiring that they cast their electoral college ballots for the winner of the popular vote. The electors claimed the fines were unconstitutional and appealed them to an administrative law judge , who upheld the imposition of the fine.
The electors appealed to the Thurston County Superior Court. The court affirmed the secretary of state's decision. On appeal to the Washington Supreme Court , the appellants moved for direct review. The state supreme court affirmed the ruling of the trial court, holding that the imposed fines were constitutional under Article II, section 1, that the electors were not granted absolute discretion in casting their votes under Article II or the Twelfth Amendment nor did the fine interfere with a federal function, and that an elector acts under the authority of the State, meaning that no First Amendment right is violated when a state imposes a fine based on an elector's violation of their pledge.
In Colorado Department of State v. Baca , electors made a similar argument to that of the plaintiffs in Chiafalo v. The case dated back to the presidential election when three of Colorado's presidential electors tried to cast their votes for candidates other than Hillary Clinton , who won the state.
Two of the electors then opted to vote for Clinton, but one—Micheal Baca—would not and instead tried to vote for John Kasich.
Baca was then removed and replaced with another elector. The three electors filed suit, claiming Baca's removal amounted to a deprivation of their rights.
Both cases were argued before the Supreme Court on May 13, The court issued rulings for both cases on July 6, , that upheld the constitutionality of penalties for faithless electors. Baca , the Supreme Court reversed the appellate court's decision in an per curiam decision for the reasons outlined in Chiafalo v. Electoral College News Feed. Ballotpedia features , encyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers.
Click here to contact our editorial staff, and click here to report an error. Click here to contact us for media inquiries, and please donate here to support our continued expansion. Share this page Follow Ballotpedia. The founders created the Electoral College, in other words, in part to prevent the election of someone like Donald Trump.
To modern American ears, it sounds insanely undemocratic for electors to ignore the will of the people of their state. But were Hamilton alive, he might wonder why Americans find this undemocratic feature of the Electoral College so outrageous while taking its other undemocratic features virtually for granted. For instance, each state gets as many electors as it has members of the House of Representatives and Senate. The District of Columbia now gets a few, too.
That is itself undemocratic. Each state gets two: Whether it has 38 million people California or half a million Wyoming. Because states, not people, are represented equally in the Senate, the Senate is undemocratic. Moreover, every state except Nebraska and Maine allocates its electors based on the principle of winner take all. Win California by one vote and you get all its electors. For that reason, too, the Electoral College does not always reflect the popular vote.
In two of the last five presidential elections, in fact, the candidate who received the most votes—Al Gore in and Hillary Clinton in —has lost the Electoral College. Americans are mildly but not profoundly disturbed by this. When George W. Bush became president after losing the popular vote in , there were protests, but no real question about the inevitability of his taking office.
In truth, Americans are wedded less to democracy than to familiarity. They value things as they are. This makes sense. Americans are used to choosing presidents in a particular way. What happens if, in the middle of a game, one player consults the instructions, finds that the actual rules are different, and proposes suddenly abiding by them instead? The other players—especially those who would be disadvantaged by the change—will likely refuse. Were the electors to meet on December 19 and decide that Donald Trump is unfit to be president, all hell would break loose.
The president who the electors chose—even if it were Hillary Clinton, who beat Trump by over a million votes—would lack legitimacy in the eyes of much of the public. Violence might break out. Moreover, once the precedent was set, future electors would become more likely to act independently again. Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
Clause 3. The Electors shall meet in their respective States and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted.
The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed: and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like manner chuse the President.
But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.
Clause 4. The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States. The electoral college was one of the compromises by which the delegates were able to agree on the document finally produced. It is in truth the most difficult of all on which we have had to decide. Clause 3 has, of course, been superceded by the Twelfth Amendment.
No question was raised as to the power of the State to appoint, in any mode its legislature saw fit to adopt, and none that a single method, applicable without exception, must be pursued in the absence of an amendment to the Constitution. The district system was largely considered the most equitable, and Madison wrote that it was that system which was contemplated by the framers of the Constitution, although it was soon seen that its adoption by some States might place them at a disadvantage by a division of their strength, and that a uniform rule was preferable.
Although Clause 2 seemingly vests complete discretion in the states, certain older cases had recognized a federal interest in protecting the integrity of the process. Thus, the Court upheld the power of Congress to protect the right of all citizens who are entitled to vote to lend aid and support in any legal manner to the election of any legally qualified person as a presidential elector.
If it has not this power it is helpless before the two great natural and historical enemies of all republics, open violence and insidious corruption. More recently, substantial curbs on state discretion have been instituted by both the Court and the Congress. In Williams v.
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