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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.
Winner takes all?
"winner-take-all" refers to the prevailing custom that states use to allocate electoral votes. The electors run as a slate and the presidential candidate with the most popular votes gets all of his electors elected and so gets all of the states electoral votes even if he won by only a narrow margin.
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 does it mean if the electoral college is a winner-take-all system?
This phrase means "all or nothing". It refers to the practice of allotting all of a states electoral votes or delegates. in the case of primaries, to the one candidate who receives the most popular vote . All but two US states use this winner take all system in the presidential election.The alternative would be to split the votes proportionally in some way to reflect the popular vote. For example if a state uses winner take all and has 21. electoral votes, a candidate who wins the state by just one vote gets all 20 of the state's electoral votes. If the state did not use winner take all, it might give 11 votes to the winner and 10 votes to the other candidate.
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).
When was the last time we use the electoral vote?
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.
How much did Al Gore lose the election by?
zero... Al Gore did not run in 2004. Al Gore lost to George W Bush in 2000. Al Gore beat George Bush by half a million popular votes. The electoral college elected George Bush after a voter count problem in Florida, the state in which George Bushs brother was governor. The electoral votes of Florida were then given to Bush to push him over the top giving him 276 electoral votes to Al Gores 266 electoral votes.
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 do Maine and Nebraska award electoral votes?
Two states, Maine and Nebraska, use a tiered system where a single elector is chosen within each Congressional district and two electors are chosen by statewide popular vote.
Do any states fail to have a winner take all apportionment of electoral college votes?
Maine and Nebraska allow for the splitting of their electoral votes. I think they both award one elector to the winner in each Congressional district and give the other two votes to the over-all state-wide winner.
How does the popular vote tie into the electoral vote?
Each state has electoral votes equal to the total of the 2 representative the state has in the U.S. Senate plus the number of representative the state has in the U.S. House of Representatives. The District of Columbia gets 3 electoral votes. Therefore, the total number of electoral votes is 538 - 100 (senators) + 435 (representatives) +3 (for DC). The District of Columbia and 48 U.S. states (all except Maine and Nebraska) utilize a winner-takes-all rule for the Electoral College. In a winner-take-all state, all of the state's Electoral votes go to whichever candidate receives a majority of the popular vote. Maine and Nebraska use the "congressional district method", selecting one elector within each congressional district by popular vote and awarding two electors by a statewide popular vote.
What methods do Nebraska and Maine use in awarding electoral votes?
Those two States are not Winner Take All Statesand their Electoral Votes may be split between voting districts as was the case for Nebraska in the 2008 Presidential Election.
