The Electoral College’s Effect on the Presidential Election

Professor Alan Joseph and Assistant Professor Robert Whitaker made a presentation on the Electoral College on Nov. 2. Whitaker covered the political strategy side of the subject, while Joseph covered the history side.

“A lot of people have heard about the Electoral College but there’s a lot of confusion about how it works, so we’re here to clear up a few things,” said Joseph.

The Electoral College is a group of electors that each political party selects. Each state gets a set number of electoral votes based on the number of representatives in the house and senate of their state. That number of votes represents an elector, which each party can send to vote as part of the Electoral College. The winning party of the state’s popular vote is the only party full of electors allowed to vote.

In order for a candidate to win the presidency, he or she needs to take half or more of the total electoral votes. In this year, that meant 270 or more votes.

Electors are chosen because they often have devoted their lives to the political agenda of their party of choice. Due to the individual’s devotion and loyalty to the party, he or she may be chosen to be an elector for their political party in their state.

The founding fathers wanted to make sure that the presidential election could not be affected by a candidate’s exploitation of the unintelligence of the average voting person, so they created the Electoral College.

“The Electoral College makes it clear that not all states are equal,” said Whitaker. Some states are known as “swing” or “battleground” states. These states are especially important to a candidate when running for president because they can often go either way.

The Democratic Party and The Republican Party are the only two parties that have won any electoral votes this year. Whitaker offered some insight as to why this might have been.

“It takes hundreds of millions of dollars to successfully run a presidential campaign,” he said.

For more information on the Electoral College, visit www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/about.