Electoral College
The Electoral College is the body in the United States that elects the president and vice-president every four years . It consists of 538 voters who are sent in the context of the presidential election from the 50 states and the federal district . The number of electors is measured by the number of members of the Congress assigned to a state ( Senate and House of Representatives ). According to the second article of the United States ConstitutionElectors may not be senators, House members, United States officials, or other federal government officials .
Terms
The English term "Electoral College" is often not translated in German and is referred to as "the Electoral College". Possible translations are " electoral college ", " electoral college " or "electors college". Accordingly, the members of the college, referred to as " electors " in English, are referred to in German as "Wahlmen", "Wahlmen " or "Elektoren". Apparently masculine terms are to be interpreted as generic masculine in accordance with today's composition . The votes of the members are called "Electoral Vote". The votes cast by the population entitled to vote in the context of the presidential elections are “ Popular Vote" called.
Legal basis
The fundamentals of Electoral College are described in the second article of the United States Constitution . The electoral process was modified twice by means of constitutional amendments : in 1803 with the 12th Amendment and in 1961 with the 23rd Amendment .
composition
Each state has as many electorates as it has representatives in both houses of Congress combined. The federal district , which includes the capital Washington, has as many electorates as it would have representatives in either house of Congress if it were a state, but in any case no more than the smallest state in terms of population.
The current number of 538 voters is therefore as follows:
- The House of Representatives has had a fixed size of 435 MPs since 1911. The distribution of MPs to the states is determined by the Hill-Huntington method according to the population figures, which are collected every 10 years in the census, the United States Census . The last time this was before the 2012 US presidential election . Each state has at least one member.
- In addition, each state has two senators in the Senate , regardless of population , so currently 100. Changes can only be made if additional states join.
- The federal district is allowed to send as many voters as if it were a state with a comparable population, but not more than the poorest state. Seven states currently have only one representative, so the number of voters for the federal district is limited to 3 (corresponding to two senators and one representative). However, even without this restriction, it would not have more voters, as it has only a few more inhabitants than the currently most populous state, Wyoming .
Since the number of senators is independent of the size of the state and the number of representatives in the House of Representatives is so small that a proportional representation of the population by state is only possible to a limited extent, the number of residents per elector differs considerably. While in large states like California and Texas there are over 600,000 residents for one voter, in the smallest states and in the federal district there are less than half as many.
Working method
Election of electors
The election of the president and the vice-president takes place indirectly every four years on election day . Although ballot papers today usually contain the names of the candidates for president and vice-president themselves, eligible voters only directly designate the electorate for the state in which they reside or for the federal district if they are resident in Washington, DC. These electors later elect the president and vice-president.
The US Constitution gives its states (and the District of Columbia) the right to determine how to allocate their electorate:
“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. "
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, in many states, the electorate was not elected directly by the people, but by the state parliaments. However, this system was soon replaced by direct electoral systems. From 1832 to 1860 South Carolina was the last state that still determined its electorate through parliament, with the exception of Florida , where parliament elected its electorate for the last time in 1868 as part of the Reconstruction .
Today (as of 2020) 48 of 50 US states and the federal district use a relative majority vote, which is often referred to as the "winner-takes-all" system. Each political party that nominates a presidential candidate determines its own group of voters per state, based on the number that state is entitled to. The candidate with the most votes receives all of the voters in his group, while the other candidates receive nothing. The second system still in use today determines an elector for each constituency of the House of Representatives , and two more are elected nationwide. This system has been in use in Maine since 1972 and in Nebraska since 1996 and has resulted in the2008 presidential election resulted in Nebraska electing four voters for John McCain and one for Barack Obama . In Maine, the 2016 presidential election split the votes among the electorate: Hillary Clinton received three votes - one for the 1st congressional district and the two "at-large" voters - and Donald Trump got one vote for the 2nd district. Congressional District. The 2020 presidential election saw a “split” distribution of voters in both states for the first time: While Donald Trump again won Maines’s 2nd congressional electoral district, Joe Biden in the 1st district and nationwide lost, the latter won the 2nd constituency in Nebraska (Trump won nationwide and in the other two constituencies).
Election of the President and Vice-President
The electorate will meet on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December in the capitals of their respective states or in the federal district. Accordingly, the Electoral College never meets as a single body in one place. The electorate votes in two unrelated elections for a presidential candidate and for a vice-president.
In 24 federal states (as of 2016), the electorate is free in their decision for a candidate, so they could also vote against the voters' wishes. In 26 states and Washington, DC , the electorate is required by law - and often also by pledge to the state or their party - to only vote for a specific candidate; in Virginia , however, the legal text could also be read as a recommendation (not a command). In practice, in each state only the supporters of a presidential candidate are designated as electors. A voter who votes against the will of their voters is called a faithless elector .
The ballot papers are sealed and sent to the incumbent Vice-President in his official position as President of the Senate.
Counting
The ballot papers will be counted in the presence of the two houses of the US Congress on January 6th. The president and vice-president become the candidates who each have an absolute majority of the votes.
Regulations in the event of unsuccessful election
If no presidential candidate receives an absolute majority, the new House of Representatives must elect one of the three candidates who received the highest number of votes in the Electoral College for president. The delegation of each state votes together and receives only one vote. A state's vote is determined by a majority of its MPs. If there is a tie within the delegation, the vote is counted as one abstention. The ballot is repeated until a candidate receives an absolute majority. So with 50 states in the United States, delegations of at least 26 would have to vote for the same candidate.
If no vice-presidential candidate receives an absolute majority, the new vice-president is determined by the Senate. In contrast to the election of the president by the House of Representatives, the Senate only chooses between the two candidates with the highest number of votes. The two senators of a state do not have to vote together, so they can vote for different candidates. It is not clear whether the Vice-President has the casting vote in this situation too, especially since he might vote on his own next Vice-Presidency or - as in the case of Al Gore - on his own future Vice-President.
If the House of Representatives cannot come to an agreement by the date of the scheduled inauguration, which the constitution since 1933 has set for January 20, the new Vice-President carries out the business of the President until the House elects a new President. If there is no new Vice President on January 20, the statutory succession plan for the President will come into force. This would allow the Speaker of the House of Representatives to carry out the presidential duties until the House of Representatives elects a new President or the Senate elects a new Vice President.
There are no clear rules in the event that a new president has been elected by the day of inauguration, but the Senate cannot agree on a vice-president. On the one hand, the 12th Amendment to the Constitution stipulates that the Senate should elect the new Vice President without setting a time limit. On the other hand, Amendment 25 stipulates that the President, with the approval of both Houses of Congress, must appoint a new Vice-President if the office is vacant.
To date, the House of Representatives has elected President twice, Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and John Quincy Adams in 1824 . The Senate elected a vice president only once, Richard M. Johnson in 1836 .
Faithless electors
An elector who votes against the elector's wishes is called a faithless elector (German: "faithless elector"). With a few exceptional cases, most of the presidential elections only saw individual electors who did not vote for the intended candidates.
The 1796 election was the only one where the outcome was influenced by faithless electors. Until the 12th Amendment was passed , the votes for President and Vice-President were not cast separately, each voter had two equal votes. President became the candidate with the most votes, and Vice President became the candidate with the second most votes. There were rumors that the federal candidate for the vice presidency, Thomas Pinckney , would be elected president by intrigue. Therefore, 18 federalists voted their second vote, not Pinckney, but other candidates. That led to the Democratic-Republican presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson Became Vice President and thus President and Vice President belonged to competing parties.
Before the presidential election in 1800 , both parties had planned that one of their electorates should not elect the intended vice-president, so that the presidential candidate would be elected with a majority of one vote. The defeated Federalists went as planned, but the victorious Democratic-Republicans unexpectedly gave their candidates Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burrthe same number of voices. As a result, the president had to be elected by the old, federally dominated House of Representatives. It was only after 36 ballots and a compromise with the federalists that Jefferson was elected. That was one of the reasons for the passing of the 12th Amendment, since 1804 the President and Vice-President have been elected in separate ballots. In 1808 , six New York electorates did not vote for the Democratic Republican candidate James Madison . Its majority was large enough to be elected anyway.
In the 1836 election , the 23 electorate from Virginia refused to vote the Democratic vice-presidential candidate Richard Johnson because he openly lived with a slave as a concubine. As a result, he received exactly half of the votes and thus missed the required majority by one vote. However, he was then elected by the Senate as the only Vice President in US history. In 1812 , 1832 , 1896 and 1912 , too , several electors did not vote for the intended vice-president, albeit without any influence on the result.
In 1872 , Horace Greeley , the presidential candidate of the defeated Democrats, died a few weeks after the popular election before the meeting of the Electoral College. Of the 66 voters who were actually committed to him, 63 elected four different other candidates; the three votes that were cast for Greeley anyway were canceled.
The first election after 1808 in which more than one elector did not vote for the intended president was the 2016 presidential election . Two voters withheld Donald Trump , eight Hillary Clinton . The latter replaced two electors with substitutes, and one elector in Maine was obliged to change her vote. After the popular election there had been a campaign to persuade Republican electorates not to vote for Trump. However, 37 of the 306 Republican electorate would have had to change their vote to overturn an absolute majority of Trump, which was considered very unlikely.
In total, there were 156 cases of faithless electors by the 2020 election , which were also legally valid. Since at least 1920 the lead of the leading candidate in the distribution of the electorate was such that the effect of a few faithless electors did not play a major role. In seven elections, however, the lead over the minimum vote of 270 (half of the 538 voters plus 1) was under 40 and in three of them even under 30. In three cases (1948, 1960, 1968) the votes of the faithless electors went down to third parties (except Republicans and Democrats), in three other cases (1976, 2004, 2016) they went partly to the competing candidates of the two main parties, albeit without having a decisive influence on the outcome of the election, which is certainly the case with the theoretically conceivable even tighter distribution of votes Case and is completely within the legal framework.
Criticism of the electoral system
Polls dating back to 1944 show that a consistent majority of Americans support the idea of direct election of the president. Critics of the system of simple majority voting and the consistently implemented competitive democracy based on the “winner-takes-all” principle complain that the election campaign is mainly focused on the swing states (states without a clear majority) and thus favors the concerns of the voters in these states would. For example, in the 2008 election campaign, both Barack Obama and John McCain promised to undertake new space flights (but without specifying the plans or seeking contact with experts): In Swing StateFlorida provides several tens of thousands of jobs for NASA .
Another point of criticism is that the votes of voters who voted for the minority are always neglected, even if they make up a sizeable proportion (in the extreme case of California, for example, in 2004 this meant 4.5 million George W. Bush voters were not counted; for John Kerry, on the other hand, almost 3.5 million votes were ignored in Florida alone at the time because the other had won the state and thus got all the electorate for the Electoral College ).
After all, the electorate represents a different number of residents depending on the state; For example, although the number of voters should roughly correspond to the size of the population, the three voters of Wyoming each represent 187,875 residents, the 18 voters of Ohio each represent 640,917 residents, and the 55 voters of California each represent 677,345 residents (2010 population figures). This leads to a disadvantage for the more densely populated states, which was already criticized in the 19th century:
“Each of the 45 states of the Union [in 1896] elects as many electors as there are altogether deputies and senators. The number of senators is the same for all states, namely two, that of the deputies, or to call them by their legal name, the representatives, depends on the number of inhabitants: one representative per approximately 150,000 inhabitants (or less). This inequality in the distribution of mandates for the Senate and the House of Representatives works in the electoral college to the disadvantage of the more densely populated states. "
In extreme cases, the presidential candidate who has the most votes nationwide ( Popular Vote ) can still lose the election because his competitor receives more votes from voters. This happened five times in the history of the USA: As early as 1824, Andrew Jackson received 38,149 more votes (10.4%) than the elected President John Quincy Adams . However, general elections were not held in all states at the time (in part, the state government was allowed to determine who its electorate should vote for), and Jackson also received the most votes from electorate (99 - Adams received 84). However, since no candidate received an absolute majority among the electorate, the President was constitutionally datedElected House of Representatives, and Jackson lost there. In 1876, Samuel J. Tilden won the majority of votes nationwide (254,235 or 3.1% ahead), but in the controversial presidential election of 1876 , three states gave their electorate double votes; the commission, which was supposed to find a way out of the crisis, finally, according to the political views of its members, narrowly voted for a solution that brought Rutherford B. Hayes to the presidency. In 1888, President Grover Cleveland was confirmed in office by a majority of the votes (90,596 or 0.8%), but was 65 voters behind Benjamin Harrison in the vote .
A similar result did not emerge until 2000 , when Al Gore received 543,895 votes (0.5%) more than George W. Bush in the elections , but Bush won five more voters. The same thing happened in the 2016 presidential election . The Republican candidate Donald Trump received over 2.8 million votes (2.09%) fewer than his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, was ahead of the electorate by 306 to 232, as he narrowly won some populous states. The nationwide majority of votes (the theoretical “popular majority”) can be interpreted as voter turnout in states in which one party is forecast to be far in the lead is usually much lower than in contested states. In addition, the presidential election campaign tactics are based on the same electoral system and not on a popular election. While the last paragraph suggests that the electoral system currently favors Republican candidates, it likely does not. In the three unspecified elections since 2000, the system would have preferred the democratic candidate if the outcome had been narrow.
Alternative suggestions and counter-criticism
Despite the criticism of the majority electoral system by the Electoral College , the prospects of introducing proportional representation (not yet implemented anywhere) or district-based voting (as previously only in Maine and Nebraska ) in individual states are slim: In ColoradoFor example, a draft amendment to the Electoral People Act was rejected by citizens in 2004. One problem is that the “winner-takes-all” principle increases the importance of contested states for the candidates, so that it appears unlikely that individual states will abolish this system while others remain in force. Another problem is that changing the allocation of voters in a state often clearly favors one party. However, the constitution expressly gives the individual states the right to decide on the mode of election. A constitutional amendment could change this, but it would also have to be approved by a three-quarters majority of the states.
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact offers an alternative without constitutional amendment: the individual states pass laws that oblige their respective electorate to vote for the candidate who receives the most votes in the USA. The crux of the matter is that the states make this regulation subject to the condition that at least 270 voters (i.e. the absolute majority) are also bound by the regulation. De facto , the electoral system would be replaced by majority voting, but neither a constitutional amendment nor - at least depending on the size of the approving states - the approval of three-quarters of the states would be required. Marylandbecame the first state to pass a law in 2007. Ten other states, including California, the state with the largest number of voters, and the District of Columbia , have already passed similar laws, and other states are in further legislative process. This means that 165 voters, or around 61 percent of the 270 voters required, are required to vote for the candidate with the most votes - provided the other states follow suit.
However, proportional representation is not only viewed positively. Because it can mean that even a relatively weak relative majority , which is distributed over many states, is sufficient to win the elections. In the USA, where traditionally exactly two parties play a role and the election to the presidency requires an absolute majority of the electorate, the notion of more than two important parties and weak relative majorities creates worries of political destabilization.
Distribution (2012-2020)
Clause proportional representation: see section Alternative suggestions and counter-criticism .
| State | Electors | Inhabitants per elector | Proportional suffrage clause |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 9 | 531.082 | No |
| Alaska | 3 | 236,744 | No |
| Arizona | 11 | 581.092 | No |
| Arkansas | 6th | 485.986 | No |
| Colorado | 9 | 558,800 | No |
| Connecticut | 7th | 510,585 | No |
| Delaware | 3 | 299.311 | No |
| Florida | 29 | 648,321 | No |
| Georgia | 16 | 605.478 | No |
| Hawaii | 4th | 340.075 | Yes |
| Idaho | 4th | 391,896 | No |
| Illinois | 20th | 641,532 | Yes |
| Indiana | 11 | 589,437 | No |
| Iowa | 6th | 507.726 | No |
| California | 55 | 677.345 | Yes |
| Kansas | 6th | 475,520 | No |
| Kentucky | 8th | 542.421 | No |
| Louisiana | 8th | 566,672 | No |
| Maine | 4th | 332.090 | No |
| Maryland | 10 | 577.355 | Yes |
| Massachusetts | 11 | 595.239 | Yes |
| Michigan | 16 | 617.728 | No |
| Minnesota | 10 | 530.393 | No |
| Mississippi | 6th | 494,550 | No |
| Missouri | 10 | 598,893 | No |
| Montana | 3 | 329,805 | No |
| Nebraska | 5 | 365.268 | No |
| Nevada | 6th | 450.092 | No |
| New Hampshire | 4th | 329.118 | No |
| New Jersey | 14th | 627.992 | Yes |
| New Mexico | 5 | 411.836 | Yes |
| new York | 29 | 668.210 | No |
| North Carolina | 15th | 635.699 | No |
| North Dakota | 3 | 224.197 | No |
| Ohio | 18th | 640.917 | No |
| Oklahoma | 7th | 535.907 | No |
| Oregon | 7th | 547.296 | No |
| Pennsylvania | 20th | 635.119 | No |
| Rhode Island | 4th | 263.142 | No |
| South carolina | 9 | 513.929 | No |
| South Dakota | 3 | 271.393 | No |
| Tennessee | 11 | 576.919 | No |
| Texas | 38 | 661.725 | No |
| Utah | 6th | 460,648 | No |
| Vermont | 3 | 208,580 | Yes |
| Virginia | 13 | 615.463 | No |
| Washington | 12 | 560.378 | Yes |
| Washington, DC | 3 1 | 200,574 | Yes |
| West Virginia | 5 | 370,599 | No |
| Wisconsin | 10 | 568,699 | No |
| Wyoming | 3 | 187.875 | No |
| United States | 538 | 573,876 | State regulation |
literature
- Peter Lösche (Ed.): Country Report USA. History, politics, economy, society, culture. Federal Agency for Civic Education , Bonn 2008, ISBN 9783893318513 .
Web links
- US Electoral College , information on the National Archives and Records Administration website
- Presidential Elections in the United States: A Primer , Report by Kevin J. Coleman, Joseph E. Cantor and Thomas H. Neale for the Congressional Research Service, April 17, 2000 (PDF; 296 kB)
- 270towin.com (interactive map with the historical compositions of the Electoral College)
- The votes that really count have not yet been cast , article by Craig Morris in Telepolis , December 11, 2004
- Title 3, Chapter 1 of the United States Code on the election process for US President
supporting documents
-
↑ Hartmut Wasser, Michael Eilfort : Political parties and elections. In: Peter Lösche, Hans Dietrich von Loeffelholz: Country Report USA. History, politics, economy, society, culture. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt / New York 2004, pp. 319–352, here pp. 344–345.
Söhnke Schreyer: Electoral system and voter behavior. In: Wolfgang Jäger, Christoph M. Haas, Wolfgang Welz: Government system of the USA. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich / Vienna 2007, pp. 265–288, here 268–269. - ↑ Maine Results nytimes.com, February 10, 2017
- ↑ What leeway do the electors have? 10: November 2016, WELT / N24, accessed November 12, 2016
- ^ What is the Electoral College? to: US National Archives and Records Administration ( using data from the Congressional Research Service ) (accessed November 11, 2016)
- ↑ 3 United States Code 15, Counting electoral votes in Congress
- ^ Russell Wheeler: Can the Electoral College be subverted by "faithless electors"? , Brookings, October 21, 2020
- ↑ Source: The Washington Post : Survey from 2007 (PDF; 81 kB)
- ↑ Americans Have Historically Favored Changing Way Presidents are Elected . Gallup. November 10, 2000. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
- ↑ The American Presidential Election. In: Vorarlberger Volksblatt , November 5, 1896, p. 1 (online at ANNO ).
- ↑ Will The Electoral College Doom The Democrats Again? In: FiveThirtyEight . November 14, 2016 ( fivethirtyeight.com [accessed November 16, 2016]).
- ^ Joel Connelly (November 20, 2007). Electoral College is past its prime. Seattle Post Intelligencer column ( Memento August 27, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed November 4, 2008)
- ^ A b Bill Schneider (April 10, 2007), Dropping out of the electoral college. CNN.com (accessed November 4, 2008)
- ^ National Popular Vote
- ↑ Is it time to scrap the Electoral College?
- ↑ US Census Bureau