What is it? When you cast your ballot for President, you are
not actually voting for the president, you are casting a ballot for a group of
7 Electors who were chosen earlier by the political party of the candidate for
whom you vote. If your presidential candidate gets the majority of votes
in Connecticut, your 7 Electors win and they will then go on to vote in
the Electoral College in Wash. D.C. in December along with Electors from
all the other states. They are the ones who actually elect the president.
How does Connecticut’s Electoral College work? In Connecticut,
each state party names 7 Electors at their state convention. Connecticut (and
all the other states) are eligible for one Elector per state party, times the
total number of US senators and US representatives in that state.
Connecticut has 2 Senators and 5 US representatives, thus 7 Electors per
party. Being chosen as an Elector is considered a reward for faithful
party service. Whichever party wins the direct popular vote for President and
Vice-President in Connecticut will determine which 7 Electors, Republican or
Democrat, will vote in the Electoral College in December. Following the
December vote by the college electors, the cast ballots are sent to
Washington, D.C., and the official results are announced at a joint meeting of
the House of Representatives and the Senate in January. In order to win the
election, a Presidential or Vice-Presidential candidate must receive a
majority of the electoral votes, 270 out of a possible total of 538. If
no candidate wins an absolute majority of electoral votes, the House of
Representatives picks the President from the top 3 candidates with each state
casting one vote. Similarly, the Vice-President would be chosen by the Senate
from the top two candidates with each Senator having one vote. An absolute
majority is necessary to win in both cases.
Do electors have to vote for the candidates for whom they have been
chosen? With rare exceptions, yes. It has basically been left up to
the states or the state’s political parties to set the rules. In one
third of the states, including Connecticut, laws bind electors to vote for
candidates to whom they are pledged. Thus far, this has not been
successfully challenged, although it appears to contravene the wording and
intent of the US Constitution, Article I, Section 2.
Most states follow the winner-take-all system, which means the candidate
that wins the most votes in a state gets all the electoral votes no matter how
slim the margin of victory. Only Maine and Nebraska use the district
method of counting votes. Under this system, a presidential candidate
receives an electoral vote for every Congressional District carried within
that state, plus two more for the candidate receiving the largest number of
popular votes in the state. It is possible to win the popular vote and
lose the electoral vote under both these systems.
Is it possible for a candidate to win the popular vote in the states and
to lose the election in the electoral college?
The answer is yes - in 1888, Benjamin Harrison won the election even
though Grover Cleveland won the popular vote.
