voting systems (electoral college)

Question 1

how many electoral college votes are there?

Answer 1

538

Question 2

how does the electoral college work?

Answer 2

the number is equal to states representation in congress, number of senators plus number of representatives

Question 3

how many votes must candidate have to win presidency?

Answer 3

270

Question 4

how does the popular vote work?

Answer 4

the popular vote is counted in all but two states. whichever candidate wins the most popular votes receives all the electoral college votes of that state “winner takes all”

Question 5

what happens if no candidate wins an absolute majority?

Answer 5

the president would be elected by house of representatives, each state has one vote and must get absolute majority.
the vice president would be elected by senate

Question 6

how is preserving the voice of smaller states a strength of the Electoral college?

Answer 6

if the electoral college was abolished, voters in smaller states would become worthless, swept aside by larger states such as Texas and California.
by 2016 Wyoming and Alaska had 3 votes whilst California had 55

Question 7

how is promoting a two horse race a strength of the electoral college?

Answer 7

the winner will tend to take more than 50% of the vote and so increases legitimacy and accountability.
however in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2016 the president did not receive 50% of popular vote

Question 8

how are small states over-represented a weakness of the electoral college?

Answer 8

some see it as a weakness that California with 55 votes and 39.2 million inhabitants, Wyoming had 3 votes representing 500,000. gives disproportionate votes

Question 9

how is the winner takes all system a weakness of the electoral college?

Answer 9

the system distorts the result. e.g in 2000 al gore beat Bush in popular vote but Bush beat him in electoral college with 271 to 266
in 2016 Hilary Clinton won popular vote by 3 million yet trump won the electoral college

Question 10

how is the electoral college unfair to smaller parties?

Answer 10

due to the first past the post voting system, it favours parties with large concentrated support.
therefore in 1992 Ross Perot won 18.9% of vote but no electoral college votes and in 2000 Green Party candidate won 3 million votes but no electoral college

Question 11

what are rogue electors?

Answer 11

a voter who votes for the candidate who did not win the popular vote in that state.

Question 12

how could direct election reform the electoral college?

Answer 12

after 2016 when the popular vote candidate did not win there was call for reform. Americans would prefer to directly vote for candidate and them to win the presidency

Question 13

what issues are there with direct election?

Answer 13

it would be likely that the president would be elected with less than 50% of the vote, not gaining absolute majority. the reform would also need a constitutional amendment and it would be unlikely that 2/3 of both houses would agree

Question 14

how could congressional district system improve the electoral college?

Answer 14

adopt the system used in Maine and Nebraska. awarding one electoral college vote to a candidate for each congressional district that they win and two votes to the state winner

Question 15

what issues are there with the congressional district system?

Answer 15

this reform would lead to the results only being marginally different in most of the last elections, it would not have helped Al Gore in 2000 or Ross Perot in 1992. in 2004 it would have exaggerated Bush’s win.
the biggest problem is that in 2012 Mitt Romney would have won, despite losing popular vote by 5 million

Question 16

how would a proportional system improve electoral college?

Answer 16

this system would abolish the electoral college.
this would be fairer to third parties but would encourage more voters to vote for them, making it that the president may not receive 50% of vote.

Question 17

what are mid-term elections?

Answer 17

elections for the House of Representatives and 1/3 of senate that occur midway through presidential term

Question 18

what is split ticket voting? what evidence is there of this?

Answer 18

voting for candidates of two or more parties for different offices at the same election.
in 2004 4 states voted for George w. bush as president but elected democrat to the senate.

Question 19

what evidence is there of a decline in split ticket voting?

Answer 19

in 2016 34 contested seats in previous elections voted the same way in both presidential and senatorial elections. as partisanship grows, split ticket votes decline

Question 20

why does the presidents party tend to lose seats in mid-term elections?

Answer 20

if the president had positive effect for party for election 2 years ago, it is likely that the parties candidates now devoid of his presence will do less well e.g 2010 mid terms.
voters often see midterms as chance to express feeling of disappointment or disapproval of president. e.g 2006 voters disapproval of bush failure to conclude Iraq