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As of 2017, the last time we use the electoral vote was in 2016. Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election defeating Hillary Clinton. In the 2016 presidential election Donald Trump received 304 electoral votes and Hillary Clinton received 227 electoral votes.
What else can I help you with?
Can you use the words electoral vote in a sentence?
Yes. Each electoral vote in the constituency will be important.
Why do we have the Electoral College?
We still use the Electoral College today because there is still support for electing the president by a national popular vote, eliminating the process of assigning electors among the state by rules that violate the principle of one person, one vote.
Do the people really vote for president?
No, the vote for president is called the popular vote and that does not count. When you cast your vote for president, you are actually voting for the electors to vote for the president.
What role does the popular vote play in a presidential election?
It has absolutely no impact at all. If something catastrophic happens before an election which could impact the general public's decision to vote well, it is the electoral colleges job to make sure that the correct vote is made. For instance, if the favored candidate's brother is charged with serial murder, and so people decide that they don't trust that candidate anymore, the popular vote will be against him, but the electoral college will vote for him because it is unfair to vote against the candidate just because his brother made a terrible mistake. The only impact people have in the election is that the popular vote is casted before the electoral vote, and so the electoral collage will usually vote the same way as the popular vote unless they feel that the popular vote was bias. The electoral college is not supposed to vote based on their opinion, but on the validity of the popular vote.
Is it true that Americans do not vote directly for presidential candidates?
Yes, it is true that Americans do not vote directly for their presidential candidates. Their votes are considered to be indirect due to the use of the Electoral College.
Has a state electoral vote ever gone against the states poplar vote?
Yes. In early elections, there wasn't necessarily a "popular vote". Some states selected their electors based upon a vote in the state legislature. In those cases, I'm not sure if it make sense to say it "went against" the popular vote, but it also certainly was not the same as the popular vote, because there was no popular vote. Also, there have been "faithless electors". These are electors who, basically, promised to vote for one candidate, and voted for another. This is a sort of "going against" the popular vote. In a sense, in most states the electoral vote always "goes against" the popular vote in the sense that the popular vote might be split 55/45, but the electoral vote will be 100/0. Only a couple of states "split" the electoral vote. It's arguable that we should abolish the electoral college and just use the popular vote directly to determine the President, but this would effectively weaken the major parties, so don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen.
Who decides when the electoral college casts its vote for the president?
Congress.
What do states use to award electoral votes?
Most states appoint their electors on a winner-take-all basis, based on the statewide popular vote on Election Day. Maine and Nebraska are the only two current exceptions. Maine and Nebraska distribute their electoral votes proportionally, with two at-large electors representing the statewide winning presidential and vice-presidential candidates and one elector each representing the winners from each of their Congressional districts.
How can a candidate win electoral votes with out the popular vote?
The popular vote and the electoral vote are two completely different things. The presidency is decided solely on who wins the electoral vote, and the popular vote is only good for giving us an idea of who is going to win the presidency. The larger the state the more votes they have in the electoral college, so if a president can win the majority of the large states electoral votes and a few smaller states they can gain the majority they need to win the presidency. In fact, if a president only needs to win the votes for the 11 largest states and they can win the presidency without a vote from the other 39 states.
What system do Americans use to elect a president?
Adult eligible voters vote in an election, held on the first Tuesday in November, every four years. The person who gets the most number of votes in a state (and the District of Columbia), get all electoral votes from that state. The person with the most number of electoral votes wins the election. In the case of a tie, the vice president casts the deciding vote for the winner. On at least two occasions, the person with the most electoral votes was Not the person who received the most people votes, but, the electoral votes decide the election of the president, not the popular vote.
Explain how the map tells you which candidate got only one electoral vote from Maine?
The presidential candidate who received only one vote from Maine in one election was Andrew Jackson in 1828. That was the only time that Maine split its electoral votes between two candidates in one election.Ironically, Maine is one of only two states that does NOT use the winner-takes-all system of electoral voting; they use the congressional district system, by which only two votes are determined by the statewide popular vote, and each additional vote is determined by the popular vote in each congressional district. The entire time Maine has been using that system, its congressional districts have never voted differently from each other.
How many electoral votes does Maine's second congressional district have?
The number of electoral votes for each state is equal to the sum of its number of Senators and its number of Representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives. Based on the 2010 Census, there are 2 members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maine. Therefore, Maine has 4 electoral votes. Maine use the "congressional district method", selecting one elector within each congressional district by popular vote and awarding two electors by a statewide popular vote. Maine's First congressional district and Second congressional district have 1 electoral vote each. Maine's remaining 2 electoral votes are awarded on a winner-take-all basis to whichever candidate receives a majority of the popular vote, or a plurality of the popular vote (less than 50 percent but more than any other candidate).
