The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

original designers of the Electoral College assumed that there would be multiple popular regional candidates, preventing any one candidate from winning a majority. Another possibility is that there could be a tie, with both of the Presidential candidates receiving 269 votes.

In the event of a tie or if neither Presidential candidate receives a majority of the votes, the decision falls to Congress. The House of Representatives shall choose from the top three candidates; however, each state has equal status with all of the other states and gets only one vote.

The responsibility to choose the Vice President falls to the U.S. Senate, with each Senator casting only one vote. There is very little chance of this happening, however. Congress has decided the Presidency only three times, and the last time this happened was in the election of 1876.

Regarding the electors themselves, what would happen if a committed Mitt Romney elector decided to vote for Barack Obama? He would be acting as a faithless elector, someone who casts a vote for a candidate other than his party’s nominee, and he would be in good company. We’ve actually had 156 incidents in which electors did not vote for the Presidential

Timeline for 2012
Presidential Election

•;Public;votes;for;Presidential;elec-tors: November 6, 2012

•;Electors;meet;in;their;states;and cast their votes: December 17, 2012

•;President;of;the;Senate;(the;U.S. Vice President) receives the votes: By a December 26, 2012 Deadline •;Joint;Session;of;Congress;Counts the Votes: January 6, 2013

•;President;is;sworn;in:;January;20,
2013, at noon
candidate who won the state’s popular vote.
Some states have laws that can punish elec-
tors who do not vote according to the state’s
popular vote total, but to this date, no one
has ever been prosecuted for being a faith-
less elector. Furthermore, the actions of
faithless electors have never affected the
outcome of a Presidential race.

with Vice President Al Gore receiving half a million more votes than Governor George Bush.

This complex system involving state elections, electors, political parties, and Congress has its fair share of critics as well as defenders. Defenders of the Electoral College note that the process preserves the important role that states play in shaping the direction of the national government and preserving our federalist ideals. Additionally, giving small-population states a minimum of three electoral votes assures that states which would not ordinarily receive much attention are courted, because as history has shown, every electoral vote matters.

Critics contend that the system actually gives too much power to small states with few people in them and enables candidates to win the Presidency without the support of the majority of the electorate. Also, modern elections have largely become a race focused on a few swing states, since the majority of states are firmly Democratic or Republican. A key criticism of this system is that it makes it impossible for any independent candidate or third party to have a realistic shot at the Presidency. Indeed, no