Will Recla

Honors 205
Frances McCue
11/13/16

How We Choose Our President

Before the Electoral College
Imagine you are an American colonist living in Rhode Island in 1776. Your
colony has just broken away and declared independence from England. This is a big
deal because you (Rhode Island) and the other 12 colonies who have broken away
are small, and England is an imperial superpower that is very rich and controls lots
of land, armies, and navies. Messing with them is not the safest plan, but it is worth
it.
You have no say in how your colony is run. You cannot vote, you dont have
anyone to vote for you, all your decisions are made for you by people far away
across the ocean in England. If they want to raise taxes they can. If they want to
make it illegal to drink water, they can. If they want to send you to jail in England
across the ocean for drinking water, they can. If they want to take over your house
so soldiers can sleep there, they can. This is obviously not okay and has to change.
So to change this, to have a voice in how your world is run, you and 12 other
colonies who feel the same way break away from England to make your own
decisions.
This is how the United States began. 13 Colonies Delaware, Pennsylvania,
Virginia, Rhode Island, New York, New Hampshire, South Carolina, North Carolina,
Massachusetts Bay (now Massachusetts), Connecticut, New Jersey, Georgia, and
Pennsylvaniadeclared independence from England so they could run themselves
how they wanted to be run. This is somewhat simplified, but this is the basic idea.

Will Recla
Honors 205
Frances McCue
11/13/16
They fought the Revolutionary war, they won, and then they joined together as the
United States of America, completely independent from anyone else.
However, now that the United States were independent, did the people of
each state have a say in how their world was run, or did the person who made the
decisions just change from someone in England, to someone in Washington D.C?
Had anything changed?
The answer is yes; a lot had changed. Initially, the United States truly
operated as 13 autonomous (autonomous means a city, state, or nation runs itself
and makes its own laws) states, who were only loosely associated by a weak central
government that had very little power, no leader, and was run by delegates chosen
by each of the states. In other words, every state did what it wanted. Every state
had its own currency, could raise its own taxes, had its own court system and its
own laws. Every state even had its own militias (armies), and could make trade
agreements with other countries, independent of the rest of the states.
Compared to what had come before, this seemed great. Looking at our
example, if you lived in Rhode Island, you now got a voice in how your State was
run. You could coin your own money, decide on your own laws, have your own
courts, fight in your own army, and chose your leader. These are all your decisions,
and even the people in Washington D.C couldnt even make these decisions for you
(and you get to choose the person from your state who represents you there). These
decisions are your right, not theirs.

Will Recla
Honors 205
Frances McCue
11/13/16
However, while these may have seemed great initially to many of the new
American citizens, problems soon began to arise. The first American government
was called the Articles of Confederation, and had a central government was made
up of a body of 13 delegates (people chosen by each state to represent them on the
national level), where each state got one delegate, and thus one vote. If anything
was to be officially achieved by the government, 9 out of the 13 states had to agree
to it, which almost never happened, as the states were always fiercely independent
and rarely agreed on anything. Similarly, if anything was to be changed about the
Articles of Confederation, all 13 states had to agree, meaning this government was
almost impossible to change. The government also could not raise taxes, nor help
the states raise taxes (as they had their own currencies) meaning no one had much
money to accomplish anything, and that regulating trade with other nations was
extremely difficult. Also, because there was no president or singular leader of this
government, in times of war or peril, all decisions and negotiations had to be made
by the 13 delegates, which ensured even less got accomplished.
Despite the independence every state had, because of these shortcomings,
the Articles of Confederation had to go. After only 10 years, the Articles of
Confederation were replaced by our current Constitution in 1888, which has dictated
how our government, and the way we elect our presidents (the electoral college),
has worked for the past 228 years.

The Creation of the Electoral College

Many of the ideas which led to the electoral college are easy to understand if
you look at what people believed when it was made. As the Constitution replaced

Will Recla
Honors 205
Frances McCue
11/13/16
the United States first government, the Articles of Confederation, many people
were worried that our government would revert to monarchy, a system of
government ruled by a king, which is what they had under English rule. The person
who would lead the country could not have very many absolute powers (powers
which they can make without anybody stopping them). Thus, the Constitution
created a system of checks and balances over three branches of government to
prevent one person, or one branch, from ruling the nation. The electoral college is
how we elect the President, the leader the executive branch, which is just one of the
three branches, and this is what we will focus on.
The writers of the constitution decided that the best way to elect a president
(and run our government) was through representation, as in we dont directly chose
our president or make our own rules, we chose people to do that for us, who we
think will have our best interests at mind. This makes sense given the time the
constitution was written.
If you were a citizen in Rhode Island, you wanted to still make many of your
own decisions and have a say in what happened where you live, you didnt want
these decisions to be made by someone in Washington D.C. Similarly, when
choosing the nations new President, even though your state is small, you still want
who Rhode Island wants as president to matter, because Rhode Island is one of the
13 equal states. Even though there are more people in New York than Rhode Island,
if you live in Rhode Island you want your voice in who is president to be considered,
and not just have the people of New York decide for you. The debate of States rights
versus peoples rights is a big one that continues to this day. It was particularly

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Honors 205
Frances McCue
11/13/16
fierce back when the constitution was made. For example, Rhode Island did believe
that states rights were more important than those of individuals, which makes
sense since there are way less individuals in Rhode Island than somewhere like New
York, so if individual rights are equally or more important than states rights, New
York gets way more of a say in things (like whom the president) is than Rhode
Island. Because of this, Rhode Island felt that the Constitution may not be in its best
interests and was the last state to agree to it.
All of this was taken into heavy consideration by the writers of the
constitution, and they balanced everything as best they could. Some people think
what they ended up creating is highly flawed and is no longer applicable to modern
day life, but their system, the electoral college, has worked well enough thus far.

How the Electoral College Works

Just like the rest of the branches of government and the rest of the
constitution, the Electoral College is run by representation, as in we do not directly
vote for the president, but vote for someone who represents us to vote for the
President. This vote by the person who we chose to vote for us is called an Electoral
Vote, and exactly what this is is kind of complicated, and we will talk about that
later. Whats important to understand first is how many electoral votes the creators
of the Electoral College decided to give each state, and that there are several other
ways the creators of the Electoral College could have decided how much each
person and state are represented.

Will Recla
Honors 205
Frances McCue
11/13/16
They could have based the representation off population. If State A has 100
people and State B has 1 person, State A gets 100 votes while State B only gets 1. A
system like this would greatly benefit states with high populations like New York, or
places now like California or Texas, because they each have so many people.
However, if we based representation off this, then States like Rhode Island or
Wyoming who have very low populations would hardly get a say in anything. The 50
States (at the time 13) are supposedly equal, so some states getting way more of a
say than others wouldnt be very fair. Especially when the constitution was first
written, as people supported states rights way more than they do today, and states
were seen as far more independent than they are today.
They also could have gone the other way, and based the representation off
representation by state. State A and State B are both equal in their Statehood so
they each get one vote, even though State A has 8 trillion people and State B has 2
people. In this system, states like Rhode Island (more like State B) benefit greatly,
as each of their people get a much greater say in government than citizens of
elsewhere with more people like New York (more like State A). In this example,
every citizen of State A would get only one eight-trillionth of a vote, while the
citizens of State B would get half a vote each, meaning what everyone in State B
thinks and votes for is far more important in elections than what each person in
State A thinks and votes for. This isnt fair either.
What the creators of the Electoral College ended up going with represents a
sort of middle ground between the two types of representation. How much each
state is represented, is dictated by how many each Electoral Votes each state gets.

Will Recla
Honors 205
Frances McCue
11/13/16
Throughout all the states, as of 2016 there are 538 electoral votes. To win a states
electoral votes, in general you need to get over half (or a majority) of the states
voters to vote for you. Simply, to be elected president, you need to win enough
states electoral votes to have at least 270 electoral votes total, or more than half of
all the electoral votes.
There are two things which determine how many electoral votes each state
gets, which is what the creators used to strike this balance between representation
by population and representation by state. Basically, what happens is that every
state gets exactly 2 electoral votes just for being a state, (meaning that every state
gets some amount of representation just because it is a state). However, every
state gets extra electoral votes based on the number of people who live in the
state. Because every state has some number of people in it, every state gets at
least 1 electoral vote because of population (meaning that every state has a
minimum of 3 electoral votes). This system parallels how the states representation
works in the legislative branch, another of the three branches of government. Each
states two votes by default match the two senators each state gets to represent
them in the senate, and the amount of votes each state gets based off its
population is equal to the number of representatives in the House of
Representatives each state gets. For example: California has 2 senators and 53
representatives, therefore it has 55 electoral votes (53+2=55).
Current map of how many electoral votes each state has

Will Recla
Honors 205
Frances McCue
11/13/16

The electoral votes that result from population are part of what makes the
Electoral College so complicated. Many states have low populations (such as
Wyoming with 586,107 people) and thus only have 3 electoral votes. Some states
have very large populations (such as California with 39,144,818 people, or almost
70 times as many people as Wyoming) and have as many as 55 electoral votes.
Most states are somewhere in between. This difference in representation by state is
what makes every election so seemingly complex and overwhelming. It also means
that each states citizens are represented by a different amount in the electoral
college, which is why many people arent the largest fans of this system and want it
to change.
Another heavily criticized part of the Electoral College is what we touched on
before: what exactly and Electoral vote is. While it is commonly thought that when
most the state votes for a candidate, the candidate gets the electoral votes for that
state, this is technically not what happens. What you are voting for when you vote is
for which party gets to choose the electors. Electors are one of the 538 people
hand-picked by the winning party of each state to go and vote for the President at
the meeting of electors in December (this is where the President is officially
chosen). The idea is that these electors will all vote for their partys candidate. This
means that when you vote for a candidate of a party to be President, you are voting

Will Recla
Honors 205
Frances McCue
11/13/16
for which party gets to choose the electors, who will then then vote for the partys
candidate. The electors chosen by each party are people with their own free will,
and sometimes vote however they want. This has only happened on 179 occasions,
and has never impacted the result of an election. However, the idea that these 538
people could decide to elect whomever they want, regardless of what the other
120,000,000 or so voters in America decided, terrifies many people.

How the Electoral College Works Today

Today, the Electoral College is very complicated, and often unpredictable, but
there are strategies many Presidents have used to beat it. These strategies are
what most news covering the election focuses on. The first idea to understand is
that many states usually do not change which party they vote for from election to
election. For example, today the states on the West Coast (Washington, Oregon, and
California), and in the North East (New York, Vermont, Massachusetts etc.) are
considered Blue States meaning they usually vote for the Democratic Party and
their candidate. Likewise, much of the South (North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi,
Alabama, Texas) and the more rural states (Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska) are
considered Red States meaning they usually vote for the Republican Party and
their candidate. Both parties are very aware of this, and thus presidential
campaigns usually spend their time and resources in states where their efforts will
have more of an impact.

Will Recla
Honors 205
Frances McCue
11/13/16
Presidential campaigns spend most of their time in these states because
unlike red states or blue states, these states frequently switch which party they vote
for from election to election. These states are known as Swing States and include
Ohio, Florida, and Virginia. Many of these states have a good deal of Electoral votes,
and not winning them can cost candidates the election (while you could win the
votes, your opponent can just as easily), as has happened countless times over the
course of American history.
Sometimes, these Swing states can create extremely close elections. In 2000,
the election was down to who would win Florida, and the winner of Florida, and thus
the election (George W. Bush), won Florida by just 537 votes. This election is also of
note as even though George W. Bush won 271 electoral votes, thus the electoral
college and was elected President, his opponent, Al Gore, had over 500,000 more
people in total vote for him.
Map of the 2000 election electoral college

This highlights a reality of the electoral college which many people do not
like: that it is often not representative of what most the nation believes. As of the

Will Recla
Honors 205
Frances McCue
11/13/16
most recent election, the candidate whom the most people voted for lost the
election on 5 occasions: 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. This often outrages the
supporters of the party who does not win in these cases, but it is important to note
that as we have learned, the Electoral College was not designed to represent people
throughout the nation equally; it was designed to balance representation by
population and by statehood equally.
However, many people who are aware of and respect this idea still can
reasonably criticize the electoral college. However unlikely it is, it is mathematically
possible to win 270 majority of the colleges 538 votes by winning only 21.9% of the
popular vote. (This would be accomplished by having a perfect majority in the
lowest population states, where the electoral vote/person is much higher than in
higher population states, creating this large difference.)
A system where this is possible is surely closer to the representation by
statehood side of the scale right? It is hard to say, and the effectiveness of the
Electoral College at representing the nations citizens has been debated
continuously since its inception. However, a large part of the debate is the general
populaces changing ideas of statehood: now we think of Americans as citizens of
the United States, not citizens of their home state. If America acts more as a single
political entity, as opposed to 50 somewhat autonomous ones, then maybe the
Electoral College should be replaced. Maybe not. The question is open for debate.
Regardless of whether you think the Electoral College is fair or should still be
used, know that you should still participate. Even if you live in a state which always
votes a certain way, your voice still matters. While the Electoral College often feels

Will Recla
Honors 205
Frances McCue
11/13/16
like a predictable system that wont change, it is a fluid system made from millions
of smaller voices. If you are an American Citizen, you are one of these voices, and
you should use it. You may nearly alone end up deciding an election. You will always
help decide.