Electoral vote

“ The electors may vote for some other person than the candidate nominated by their respective parties; but no elector has ever chosen to exercise this privilege. They consider themselves in honor pledged and instructed to cast their votes for the candidate of their own political faith.
The vote of the people for electors is called the popular vote, and the vote of the electors for President is called the electoral vote. As has several times happened in our history, a candidate may be elected President or Vice President and yet be in a minority of the popular vote. ”

“ Then, on a date set by the ECA, each state’s ascertained electors were required to meet and collect the results of the presidential election—that is, to cast electoral votes based on their state’s popular vote, and to send their electoral votes, along with the state executive’s certification that they were the state’s legitimate electors, to the United States Congress to be counted and certified in an official proceeding. ”

“ The popular vote in each State is taken at the time appointed by the laws, and such vote is announced by the electoral college without reference to the decision of other States. The right of suffrage and the mode of conducting the election are regulated by the laws of each State, and the election is distinctly federative in all its prominent features. ”

“ The electoral method has not been chosen to suit the convenience of party organizations; parties have had to adapt themselves to the system of voting. The single transferable vote in accordance with these traditions bases representation upon electors, and preserves to them freedom to vote as they please. ”

“ A majority, that is to say, of electoral votes, for the American President is not chosen directly by the people, but by the people’s delegates. [329] Each State elects its quota of Presidential electors, chosen not in proportion to the strength of parties in the State, but all of them representing the dominant party. [330] Thus it may happen that a candidate, like Judge Douglas, who polls a large minority of the total popular vote, will receive a mere handful of electoral suffrages, having failed to carry more than one or two States. Lincoln was chosen by 180 votes to 123 ”

“ Moreover every thinking man will admit that the makers of the Constitution, when framing that vague provision concerning the counting of the electoral votes, did certainly not foresee and contemplate the case of disputed electoral votes, and of a Presidential election depending upon disputed votes. ”

“ Article II creates the electoral college, where each State appoints electors. Laws of all 50 States and D.C. require electors to vote for the winner of the State’s popular election. Each State provides for the orderly conduct of elections, including lawful challenges, recounts, and the like.
The 12th Amendment is what brings us to today. It says the electors meet in their States. That happened December 14.
The amendment says the electors shall cast their votes, sign and certify them, and transmit them to us, sealed. ”

“ The Electoral College may vote for the re-election of the then President, besides three candidates recommended by him.
Art. 9. The single ballot system will be adopted for the Presidential Election. There should be an attendance of not less than three-fourths of the total membership. One who receives a two-thirds majority or greater of the total number of votes cast shall be elected. If no one secures a two-thirds majority the two persons receiving the largest number of votes shall be put to the final vote. ”

“ If the electoral college was not really to select the President, it must become a mere machine for registering the results of a popular vote throughout the nation, and the candidates for the presidency must be designated beforehand in some way. ”

“ In a per curiam opinion—meaning all nine Justices, that it was unanimous—they noted strict adherence to the provisions of the Electoral Count Act may create “a ‘safe harbor’ for a State insofar as congressional consideration of its electoral votes is concerned.” ”

“ There were then thirty-eight states in the Union, casting 369 electoral votes. This made 185 necessary for a choice; and when the returns were all in, it appeared that, if the Republicans could secure the electoral votes of South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon, they would have exactly 185. In these states, however, a dispute was raging as to which set of electors, Republican or Democratic, was elected. Each claimed to be; and, as the result depended on them, each set met and voted. It was then for Congress to decide which should be counted. ”

“ Nowadays it is the regular rule that in each State the voting for the presidential electors takes place not in separate districts, but in the mass and by “general ticket,” and these presidential electors make up the college called upon to choose the President of the Union. The candidate who gets a majority even of a few hundred votes in the hundreds of thousands of voters in any State — as was once the case at New York — gets the whole vote of that State. Thus at every election it is a majority of States rather than a majority of voters which decides the victory. ”

“ Experience has shown that the load of responsibility placed upon the voters by these new measures was sometimes more than they were willing to bear. The scanty primary votes, and the inattention to some of the referendum and initiative questions put on the ballots, were seized upon as showing that the voter was interested only in men. On the other hand, the ballots of most cities, towns and states were loaded down with long lists of officers to be chosen at each election, so that the “vote for men” was in many cases a vote in the dark. ”

“ But even when elections aren't that close, your ballot counts, because in voting, you're accepting your part in the greatest decisionmaking body the world has ever known, the American electorate. And as someone who's stayed up late on many election nights waiting to hear how the American people had decided, I can tell you that from where I sit-whether elections are close or not-every vote is important. ”

“ Counting the votes of the electors, a function that the 12th Amendment assigns to Congress, is an administrative and largely ceremonial act. Our job is simply to count the votes certified by each State—nothing more. We should not attempt to usurp the roles of the voters, the States, or the electoral college. ”

“ And you must bear in mind that there is no other people in the world that considers that it has a fair representative system unless it has the ballot. The ballot is universal almost in the United States. It is almost universal in the colonies, at any rate in the Australian colonies; it is almost universal on the continent of Europe, and in the new Parliament of North Germany, which is about soon to be assembled, every man of twenty-five years of age is to be allowed to vote, and to vote by ballot. ”

“ It is, however, sufficient for the purpose of the political organizer to know that a number of the electors will succumb to such influences. The votes of this small section of the electorate can turn the scale at an election, and so long as we adhere to a system under which the whole of the representation allotted to any given constituency is awarded to the party which can secure a bare majority of votes, we must expect to see a progressive degradation of electoral contests. ”

“ How then can one person be given twice or 10 times the voting power of another person in a statewide election merely because he lives in a rural area or because he lives in the smallest rural county? Once the geographical unit for which a representative is to be chosen is designated, all who participate in the election are to have an equal vote-whatever their race, whatever their sex, whatever their occupation, whatever their income, and wherever their home may be in that geographical unit. ”

“ Intrigue and combination are more commonly found connected with secret sessions, than with public debates, with the workings of the ballot box, than with the manliness of viva voce votes. At least, it may be questioned, if the vote by ballot has, in the opinion of a majority of the American people, obtained any decisive preference over viva voce voting, even at elections. The practice in New England is one way, and at the South another way. ”

“ Madam Speaker, this day marks a crossroads for American democracy. Those who object to the counting of the electoral college votes, which reflect the votes of the American people, want to substitute their preferences for the voters’ choice. ”

“ And as part of the effort in Congress to enact campaign finance reform, some have suggested also taking a look at election reform. In and of itself, our nation needs to take a look at its election laws, and the President's opinions. There are important lessons to be learned from the 2000 presidential election, including access to the polls, including the question of military people and having the right to vote, including the effect of different projections of the vote before polling places were closed and whether or not that affected turnout. ”