What is an Electoral College?
The Electoral College is a form of indirect voting where citizens vote for their electors and each elector, under the Twelfth Amendment is allowed to cast one vote each for president and vice-president. The statistical map above shows how many electors each of the American states has. What voters need to know about this system is that electors pledge to vote for a specific candidate, even though they are free to choose anyone eligible.
What a voter does is cast ballots for an elector who has pledged themselves to the two candidates favoured by the voter. The three-branched government of the USA is used to maintain balance of power; similarly, the Electoral College ensures that the Presidential election isn’t a pageant where his popularity would undermine the power of the other two branches. The popular vote comes into play when people vote for a party representative. (eg: The vote for Democrat representative between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama.)
Other Highlights
The League of Young Voters Education Fund is preparing for a Party at the Polls on Minnesota’s primary election day, September 12th. Hot food, prizes, live entertainment, and volunteers eager to register new voters promise to bring hundreds of new young voters to the polls in this same-day registration state.
Michigan Voice, a coalition of six community organizations, has registered more than 1,700 young voters in Michigan. One coalition member, ACCESS, which represents the Arab-American community in Michigan, is signing up hundreds of new voters at naturalization ceremonies, mosques, and events in the Detroit area.
The Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project launched its voter registration drive on 70 campuses in 25 states last week. Student volunteers will register tens of thousands of young voters over the next two months.
This week, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation will launch Voto Latino’s Txt2Represent campaign to its 60,000 member youth network, encouraging all to register, volunteer, and run their own registration campaigns.
AASCU’s American Democracy Project officially launched its project to register 40,000 students on 80 state university campuses. Not only will the project register young voters, but academic researchers will track each tactic used on campus—including class presentations, tabling, mail, and email—to determine which works best to register what type of college student, and present a best practices analysis post-election.