Electoral College
In other U.S. elections, candidates are elected directly by popular vote. But the president and vice president are
not elected directly by citizens. Instead, they are chosen by “electors” through a process called the Electoral
College.
The process of using electors comes from the Constitution. It was a compromise between a popular vote by
citizens and a vote in Congress.
The Electors
Each state gets as many electors as it has members of Congress (House and Senate). Including Washington, D.C.’s
three electors, there are currently 538 electors in all.
Each state’s political parties choose their own slate of potential electors. Who is chosen to be an elector, how, and
when varies by state.
How Does the Electoral College Process Work?
After you cast your ballot for president, your vote goes to a statewide tally. In 48 states and Washington, D.C., the
winner gets all the electoral votes for that state. Maine and Nebraska assign their electors using a proportional
system.
A candidate needs the vote of at least 270 electors—more than half of all electors in the U.S.—to win the
presidential election.
In most cases, a projected winner is announced on election night in November after you vote. But the actual
Electoral College vote takes place in mid-December when the electors meet in their states. See the Electoral
College timeline of events for the 2020 election.
While the Constitution does not require electors to vote for the candidate chosen by their state's popular vote,
some states do. The rare elector who votes for someone else may be fined, disqualified and replaced by a
substitute elector, or potentially even prosecuted by their state.
Special Situations
Winning the Popular Vote but Losing the Election
It is possible to win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote. This happened in 2016, in 2000, and three
times in the 1800s.
What Happens if No Candidate Wins the Majority of Electoral Votes?
If no candidate receives the majority of electoral votes, the vote goes to the House of Representatives. House
members choose the new president from among the top three candidates. The Senate elects the vice president
from the remaining top two candidates.
This has only happened once. In 1824, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams as president.
How to Change the Electoral College
The Electoral College process is in the U.S. Constitution. It would take a constitutional amendment to change the
process.
Overview of the Presidential Election Process
An election for president of the United States happens every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday
in November. The most recent presidential election was November 3, 2020.
Presidential Primaries and Caucuses
Before the general election, most candidates for president go through a series of state primaries and caucuses.
Though primaries and caucuses are run differently, they both serve the same purpose. They let the states choose
the major political parties’ nominees for the general election.
How State Primaries and Caucuses Work
State primaries are run by state and local governments. Voting happens through secret ballot.
Caucuses are private meetings run by political parties. They are held at the county, district, or precinct
level. In most, participants divide themselves into groups according to the candidate they support.
Undecided voters form their own group. Each group gives speeches supporting its candidate and tries to
get others to join its group. At the end, the number of voters in each group determines how many
delegates each candidate has won.
Both primaries and caucuses can be “open,” “closed,” or some hybrid of the two.
o During an open primary or caucus, people can vote for a candidate of any political party.
o During a closed primary or caucus, only voters registered with that party can take part and vote.
o “Semi-open” and “semi-closed” primaries and caucuses are variations of the two main types.
Awarding Delegates From the Primaries and Caucuses
At stake in each primary or caucus is a certain number of delegates. These are individuals who represent their
state at national party conventions. The candidate who receives a majority of the party’s delegates wins the
nomination. The parties have different numbers of delegates due to the rules involved in awarding them. Each
party also has some unpledged delegates or superdelegates. These delegates are not bound to a specific
candidate heading into the national convention.
When the primaries and caucuses are over, most political parties hold a national convention. This is when the
winning candidates receive their nomination.
For information about your state's presidential primaries or caucuses, contact your state election office or the
political party of your choice.
What is the Electoral College?
The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The Founding Fathers established it in the Constitution, in part, as a
compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a
popular vote of qualified citizens.
What is the process?
The Electoral College process consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote
for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress.
How many electors are there? How are they distributed among the States?
The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President.
Your State has the same number of electors as it does Members in its Congressional delegation: one for each
Member in the House of Representatives plus two Senators. Read more about the allocation of electoral votes.
The District of Columbia is allocated 3 electors and treated like a State for purposes of the Electoral College under
the 23rd Amendment of the Constitution. For this reason, in the following discussion, the word “State” also refers
to the District of Columbia and “Governor” to the Mayor of the District of Columbia.
How are my electors chosen? What are their qualifications? How do they decide who to vote for?
Each candidate running for President in your State has his or her own group of electors (known as a slate). The
slates are generally chosen by the candidate’s political party in your State, but State laws vary on how the electors
are selected and what their responsibilities are. Read more about the qualifications of the electors and restrictions
on who the electors may vote for.
What happens in the general election? Why should I vote?
The general election is held every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. When you vote for
a Presidential candidate you are actually voting for your candidate's preferred electors. Learn more about voting
for the electors.
Most States have a “winner-take-all” system that awards all electors to the Presidential candidate who wins the
State's popular vote. However, Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of “proportional representation.” Read
more about the allocation of electors among the States.
What happens after the general election?
After the general election, your Governor prepares a Certificate of Ascertainment listing the names of all the
individuals on the slates for each candidate. The Certificate of Ascertainment also lists the number of votes each
individual received and shows which individuals were appointed as your State's electors. Your State’s Certificate
of Ascertainment is sent to NARA as part of the official records of the Presidential election.
The meeting of the electors takes place on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December after the
general election. The electors meet in their respective States, where they cast their votes for President and Vice
President on separate ballots. Your State’s electors’ votes are recorded on a Certificate of Vote, which is prepared
at the meeting by the electors. Your State’s Certificate of Vote is sent to Congress, where the votes are counted,
and NARA, as part of the official records of the Presidential election.
Each State’s electoral votes are counted in a joint session of Congress on the 6th of January in the year following
the meeting of the electors. Members of the House and Senate meet in the House Chamber to conduct the official
count of electoral votes. The Vice President, as President of the Senate, presides over the count and announces
the results of the vote. The President of the Senate then declares which persons, if any, have been elected
President and Vice President of the United States.
The President-elect takes the oath of office and is sworn in as President of the United States on January 20th in
the year following the general election.
About the electors
What are the qualifications to be an elector?
The U.S. Constitution contains very few provisions relating to the qualifications of electors. Article II, section 1,
clause 2 provides that no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the
United States, shall be appointed an elector. As a historical matter, the 14th Amendment provides that State
officials who have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given aid and comfort to its
enemies are disqualified from serving as electors. This prohibition relates to the post-Civil War era.
Each State's Certificates of Ascertainment confirms the names of its appointed electors. A State's certification of
its electors is generally sufficient to establish the qualifications of electors.
Who selects the electors?
Choosing each State's electors is a two-part process. First, the political parties in each State choose slates of
potential electors sometime before the general election. Second, during the general election, the voters in each
State select their State's electors by casting their ballots.
The first part of the process is controlled by the political parties in each State and varies from State to State.
Generally, the parties either nominate slates of potential electors at their State party conventions or they chose
them by a vote of the party's central committee. This happens in each State for each party by whatever rules the
State party and (sometimes) the national party have for the process. This first part of the process results in each
Presidential candidate having their own unique slate of potential electors.
Political parties often choose individuals for the slate to recognize their service and dedication to that political
party. They may be State elected officials, State party leaders, or people in the State who have a personal or
political affiliation with their party's Presidential candidate. (For specific information about how slates of potential
electors are chosen, contact the political parties in each State.)
The second part of the process happens during the general election. When the voters in each State cast votes for
the Presidential candidate of their choice they are voting to select their State's electors. The potential electors'
names may or may not appear on the ballot below the name of the Presidential candidates, depending on election
procedures and ballot formats in each State.
The winning Presidential candidate's slate of potential electors are appointed as the State's electors—except in
Nebraska and Maine, which have proportional distribution of the electors. In Nebraska and Maine, the State
winner receives two electors and the winner of each congressional district (who may be the same as the overall
winner or a different candidate) receives one elector. This system permits Nebraska and Maine to award electors
to more than one candidate.
Do electors get to vote twice for President?
Electors do not vote twice for President. When they vote in the November general election, they aren’t electors
yet; they are voting for themselves to be electors. They are the only ones who actually vote for President, which
they do at the meeting of the electors (the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December).
Are there restrictions on who the electors can vote for?
There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires electors to vote according to the results of the
popular vote in their States. Some States, however, require electors to cast their votes according to the popular
vote. These pledges fall into two categories—electors bound by State law and those bound by pledges to political
parties.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not require that electors be completely free to act as
they choose and therefore, political parties may extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties' nominees.
Some State laws provide that so-called "faithless electors" may be subject to fines or may be disqualified for
casting an invalid vote and be replaced by a substitute elector. The Supreme Court decided (in 2020) that States
can enact requirements on how electors vote. No elector has ever been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged.
However, several electors were disqualified and replaced, and others fined, in 2016 for failing to vote as pledged.
It is rare for electors to disregard the popular vote by casting their electoral vote for someone other than their
party's candidate. Electors generally hold a leadership position in their party or were chosen to recognize years of
loyal service to the party. Throughout our history as a nation, more than 99 percent of electors have voted as
pledged.
The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) has compiled a brief summary of State laws about the
various procedures, which vary from State to State, for selecting slates of potential electors and for conducting
the meeting of the electors. You can download the document, "Summary: State Laws Regarding Presidential
Electors ," from the NASS website .
If the electors vote for President, why should I vote in the general election?
During the general election your vote helps determine your State’s electors. When you vote for a Presidential
candidate, you aren’t actually voting for President. You are telling your State which candidate you want your
State to vote for at the meeting of electors. The States use these general election results (also known as the
popular vote) to appoint their electors. The winning candidate’s State political party selects the individuals who
will be electors.
Distribution of Electoral Votes
Allocation among the States
Electoral votes are allocated among the States based on the Census. Every State is allocated a number of votes
equal to the number of senators and representatives in its U.S. Congressional delegation—two votes for its
senators in the U.S. Senate plus a number of votes equal to the number of its Congressional districts.
Under the 23rd Amendment of the Constitution, the District of Columbia is allocated three electors and treated
like a State for purposes of the Electoral College.
Each State (which includes the District of Columbia for this discussion) decides how to appoint its electors.
Currently all States use the popular vote results from the November general election to decide which political
party chooses the individuals who are appointed.
Allocation within each State
All States, except for Maine and Nebraska have a winner-take-all policy where the State looks only at the overall
winner of the state-wide popular vote. Maine and Nebraska, however, appoint individual electors based on the
winner of the popular vote for each Congressional district and then 2 electors based on the winner of the overall
state-wide popular vote.
Even though Maine and Nebraska don't use a winner-take-all system, it is rare for either State to have a split vote.
Each has done so once: Nebraska in 2008 and Maine in 2016.
Current allocations
The allocations below are based on the 2010 Census. They are effective for the 2012, 2016, and 2020 presidential
elections.
Total Electoral Votes: 538; Majority Needed to Elect: 270
Debating the Electoral College
Two Elections Experts Argue for and Against This
Uniquely American Institution
For some, the Electoral College is an essential legacy of the founders’ vision. For others, it’s a
relic enabling a tyranny of the minority.
As a compromise between electing the president by popular vote or letting Congress choose
the chief executive, our founders settled on the idea of using electors. Each state has as many
electors as it has members of the U.S. House and Senate. Together, these 538 electors make
up the Electoral College, which has one purpose: to choose the president every four years.
Electors generally are chosen by the political parties, though laws governing the selection
process vary by state. Today, 48 states allocate their electoral votes to the winner of the
statewide vote—a winner-take-all approach. Maine and Nebraska give two electors to the
winner of the statewide vote, then apportion one elector to the top vote-getter from each
congressional district. A presidential candidate must get at least 270 Electoral College votes
to win the office.
Should it be left intact or abolished? Improved or replaced? Opinions differ. We offer two
views here. Trent England, director of the Save Our States project, favors the current
system. Vermont Senator Christopher Pearson (P/D) sits on the board of the National Popular
Vote Inc. and would do away with our winner-take-all system.
PRO: Current System Keeps States in Charge of
Our Elections
The Electoral College preserves needed checks and balances.
By Trent England
The Electoral College ensures that our national politics stay national.
It keeps states in charge of election administration and contains disputes within individual
states. Under our current system, there are no nationwide recounts, and presidential
appointees do not run presidential elections. Eliminating the Electoral College, or nullifying it
with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, would eliminate these benefits and
radically change American politics.
The first draft of the U.S. Constitution—the Virginia Plan—proposed that Congress choose the
president. The Constitutional Convention rejected this parliamentary model. The delegates
wanted an independent executive and real separation of powers. Some suggested a direct
election, but that too was rejected. The Electoral College was the result of a compromise, just
like Congress and the Bill of Rights.
At the Constitutional Convention, the primary concern of delegates opposed to direct election
was that big states would dominate presidential politics. By using a two-step election process,
the Electoral College prevents one region, or a handful of major metropolitan areas, from
controlling the White House. Support must be geographically distributed around the country
in order to win enough states to capture an electoral vote majority.
This was particularly important after the Civil War. The nation remained divided, and
Democrats became dominant in the south. A combination of intense popularity with some
voters and violent suppression of others allowed Democrats to receive the most popular votes
in 1876 and 1888 even though they lost the Electoral College and thus those elections.
While some whined about the Electoral College, smarter Democrats set about the hard work
of reaching out and building a broader coalition. They focused on voters in the north and in
the new western states, especially those being ignored by Republican political machines.
Their outreach to immigrants and Catholics rebuilt the Democratic Party. It also helped break
down sectional divides and heal the nation.
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which 15 states have joined, would eliminate
incentives to build a nationwide coalition. Geographic diversity would be irrelevant in the
election. And with no runoffs or minimum threshold to win, a national public vote would
encourage fringe parties and spoiler candidates, leading to winners with smaller and smaller
pluralities.
The popular vote compact would rely on each participating state to certify, for itself, a
national vote total. These states are expected to trust, with no power to verify, the accuracy
and honesty of every other state’s elections. They would aggregate votes across jurisdictions
with different rules and processes, likely violating the equal protection clause of the
Constitution.
Like the United States, most major countries use a two-step democratic process to choose
their head of government. These systems prevent regionalism and some, like the Electoral
College, reduce the possibility of having winners with small pluralities and decentralized
support. Proposals to eliminate the Electoral College, or to do an “end run” with the popular
vote compact, would eliminate these checks and balances in favor of a simple majority.
The Electoral College is not perfect—no election system is. But it has stood the test of time.
The process rewards coalition-building and prevents nationwide recounts. In most elections, it
simply amplifies the popular vote result. In every election, it allows states to remain in charge
and contains disputes within state lines. In a time of political turbulence, the United States
needs the Electoral College more than ever.
Trent England is the founder and director of Save Our States and the David and Ann Brown
Distinguished Fellow at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.
Reasons to Keep the Electoral College
The Founding Fathers thought it was the best way to choose the president.
The U.S. Constitution should be amended only rarely.
It safeguards against uninformed or uneducated voters.
It prevents states with larger populations from having undue influence.
It forces presidential candidates to campaign in all parts of the country.
It lessens the likelihood of calls for recounts or demands for runoff elections.
CON: Winner-Take-All Ignores the Will of Too Many
Voters
The Electoral College should follow the popular vote.
By Christopher Pearson
Americans want a popular vote for president. Fortunately, how the Electoral College functions
is up to the states. Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution says: “Each State shall appoint, in
such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors...” The red and blue
map we watch on election night is not set in stone; it’s set in state statutes.
Forty-eight states have adopted the “winner-take-all” law. This law, for example, gave then-
candidate Donald Trump all of Pennsylvania’s 20 electors the moment he got one vote more
than Hillary Clinton inside Pennsylvania.
Winner-take-all is creating problems for states and the country as a whole.
Consider, the winner-take-all rule is why 70% of American voters are ignored, while
campaigns shower attention on five to 12 battleground states. In 2016, two-thirds of the
general election campaign (spending and events) took place in only six states; 94% was
centered in just 12 states.
Ignoring so many voters has an impact beyond campaigns. Florida and other battleground
states get more disaster declarations, more federal waivers, more presidentially controlled
spending and so on.
The winner-take-all rule is also why the second-place candidate has won the White House
twice in our lifetimes.
States are already working to fix the Electoral College. Since 2006, the national popular vote
bill has passed in 15 states plus the District of Columbia. These 16 jurisdictions hold 196
electors. The bill will take effect when enacted by states with 74 more electoral votes to reach
a majority (270 of 538). The Electoral College would then be guaranteed to follow the popular
vote winner because enacting states agree to award their electors to the candidate who’s won
the popular vote in all 50 states plus Washington, D.C.
Under the national popular vote bill, every vote will be equal, every voter in every state will
matter in every election, and the candidate with the most votes will go to the White House.
Opponents of a popular vote have a tough time arguing that votes shouldn’t be equal so they
float obscure arguments against states adopting a new law for electors. For instance, they
argue that New York and California will somehow swamp all the rest of us—ignoring that
these two big states make up only 18% of the country.
Opponents argue we won’t have an official tally of the popular vote. Or that a secretary of
state could thwart the country’s ability to have an official tally. Neither argument is accurate
because federal regulations (3 U.S. Code § 6) require states to file election totals six days
ahead of the meeting of electors. Opponents seem to believe state officials could keep vote
totals secret, ignoring the fact that results from the precincts are public and seen by hundreds
of poll workers.
These weak arguments have not been persuasive in 16 jurisdictions. It’s time to use the
power granted by the U.S. Constitution and award electoral votes to the winner of the national
popular vote. Once a handful more states join, Americans will elect the president under a
system that treats every vote equally and guarantees that the candidate with the most votes
is the candidate who goes to the White House.
Christopher Pearson is a second-term Vermont senator. He is on the board of the National Popular
Vote Inc.
Reasons to Abolish the Electoral College
It is no longer relevant.
The Constitution has been amended before; it can be done again.
It gives too much attention and power to swing states.
It allows the presidential election to be decided by a handful of states.
It can ignore the will of the people.
The candidate who wins the most votes does not necessarily win the election, as
happened in 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016 and possibly in 1824 and 1960.
Should the United States Use the Electoral College in Presidential Elections?
Pro 1
The Electoral College ensures that that all parts of the country are
involved in selecting the President of the United States.
If the election depended solely on the popular vote, then candidates could limit campaigning
to heavily-populated areas or specific regions. To win the election, presidential candidates
need electoral votes from multiple regions and therefore they build campaign platforms with a
national focus, meaning that the winner will actually be serving the needs of the entire
country.
Without the electoral college, groups such as Iowa farmers and Ohio factory workers would be
ignored in favor of pandering to metropolitan areas with higher population densities, leaving
rural areas and small towns marginalized. [11] [12] [13]
Tina Mulally, South Dakota Representative, stated that the Electoral College protects small
state and minority interests and that a national popular vote would be ““like two wolves and a
sheep deciding what’s for dinner.” Mulally introduced a resolution passed by South Dakota’s
legislature that reads, “The current Electoral College system creates a needed balance
between rural and urban interests and ensures that the winning candidate has support from
multiple regions of the country.” [32]
Pro 2
The Electoral College was created to protect the voices of the minority
from being overwhelmed by the will of the majority.
The Founding Fathers wanted to balance the will of the populace against the risk of “tyranny
of the majority,” in which the voices of the masses can drown out minority interests. [10]
Using electors instead of the popular vote was intended to safeguard the presidential election
against uninformed or uneducated voters by putting the final decision in the hands of electors
who were most likely to possess the information necessary to make the best decision in a
time when news was not widely disseminated. [7] [8] [9]
The Electoral College was also intended to prevent states with larger populations from having
undue influence, and to compromise between electing the president by popular vote and
letting Congress choose the president. [7] [8] [9]
According to Alexander Hamilton, the Electoral College is if “not perfect, it is at least
excellent,” because it ensured “that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man
who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” [7]
Democratic Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak vetoed a measure in 2019 that would add the
state to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would have obligated the state’s
electors to vote for the popular vote winner. Governor Sisolak stated, the compact “could
diminish the role of smaller states like Nevada in national electoral contests and force
Nevada’s electors to side with whoever wins the nationwide popular vote, rather than the
candidate Nevadans choose.” [31]
Hans von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former
commissioner for the FEC, explained, “The Framers’ fears of a ‘tyranny of the majority’ is still
very relevant today. One can see its importance in the fact that despite Hillary Clinton’s
national popular vote total, she won only about a sixth of the counties nationwide, with her
support limited mostly to urban areas on both coasts.” [34]
Pro 3
The Electoral College can preclude calls for recounts or demands for run-
off elections, giving certainty to presidential elections.
If the election were based on popular vote, it would be possible for a candidate to receive the
highest number of popular votes without actually obtaining a majority. [11]
This happened with President Nixon in 1968 and President Clinton in 1992, when both men
won the most electoral votes while receiving just 43% of the popular vote. The existence of
the Electoral College precluded calls for recounts or demands for run-off elections. [11]
Richard A. Posner, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and a senior lecturer
at the University of Chicago Law School, further explained, “There is pressure for runoff
elections when no candidate wins a majority of the votes cast; that pressure, which would
greatly complicate the presidential election process, is reduced by the Electoral College,
which invariably produces a clear winner.” [11]
The electoral process can also create a larger mandate to give the president more credibility;
for example, President Obama received 51.3% of the popular vote in 2012 but 61.7% of the
electoral votes. [2] [14]
In 227 years, the winner of the popular vote has lost the electoral vote only six times. This
proves the system is working. [2] [14]
Con 1
The Electoral College gives too much power to swing states and allows
the presidential election to be decided by a handful of states.
The two main political parties can count on winning the electoral votes in certain states, such
as California for the Democratic Party and Indiana for the Republican Party, without worrying
about the actual popular vote totals. Because of the Electoral College, presidential candidates
only need to pay attention to a limited number of states that can swing one way or the
other. [18]
A Nov. 6, 2016 episode of PBS NewsHour revealed that “Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton
have made more than 90% of their campaign stops in just 11 so-called battleground states. Of
those visits, nearly two-thirds took place in the four battlegrounds with the most electoral
votes — Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina.” [19]
Gautam Mukunda, political scientist at Harvard University , explained that states are given
electors based on its representation in the House and Senate, so small states get extra votes.
Mukunda stated, “The fact that in presidential elections people in Wyoming have [nearly four]
times the power of people in California is antithetical at the most basic level to what we say
we stand for as a democracy.” [33]
Con 2
The Electoral College is rooted in slavery and racism.
The “minority” interests the Founding Fathers intended the Electoral College to protect were
those of slaveowners and states with legal slavery. James Madison stated, “There was one
difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right
of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter
could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of
electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest
objections.” [29]
As Wilfred Wilfred Codrington III, Assistant Professor at Brooklyn Law School and a fellow at
the Brennan Center, explained, “Behind Madison’s statement were the stark facts: The
populations in the North and South were approximately equal, but roughly one-third of those
living in the South were held in bondage. Because of its considerable, nonvoting slave
population, that region would have less clout under a popular-vote system. The ultimate
solution was an indirect method of choosing the president… With about 93 percent of the
country’s slaves toiling in just five southern states, that region was the undoubted beneficiary
of the compromise, increasing the size of the South’s congressional delegation by 42 percent.
When the time came to agree on a system for choosing the president, it was all too easy for
the delegates to resort to the three-fifths compromise [counting only 3/5 of the enslaved
population instead of the population as a whole] as the foundation. The peculiar system that
emerged was the Electoral College.” [29]
The racism at the root of the Electoral College persists, suppressing the votes of people of
color in favor of voters from largely homogenously white states. [29] [30]
Con 3
Democracy should function on the will of the people, allowing one vote
per adult.
There are over an estimated 332 million people in the United States, with population
estimates predicting almost 342 million by 2024, the next presidential election. But just 538
people decide who will be president; that’s about 0.000156% of the population deciding the
president. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than one million votes, yet
still lost the election on electoral votes. [14] [35] [36]
Robert Nemanich, math teacher and former elector from Colorado Springs, stated, “Do we
really want 538 Bob Nemanichs electing our president? …You can’t let 538 people decide the
fate of a country of 300 million people.” [28]
Even President Donald Trump, who benefitted from the Electoral College system, stated after
the 2016 election that he believes presidents should be chosen by popular vote: “I would
rather see it where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes and
somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win.” Just as in 2000 when George W. Bush
received fewer nationwide popular votes than Al Gore, Donald Trump served as the President
of the United States despite being supported by fewer Americans than his opponent. [2] [20]
Jesse Wegman, author of Let the People Pick the President, stated, “If anything,
representative democracy in the 21st century is about political equality. It’s about one
person, one vote — everybody’s vote counting equally. You’re not going to convince a
majority of Americans that that’s not how you should do it.” [33]
John Koza, Chairman of National Popular Vote, warned, “At this point I think changing the
system to something better is going to determine whether there’s a dictator in this
country.” [27]
