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Hi Friend,
The topic of the Electoral College system in the US came up recently in one of the textbooks we use as homeschool curriculum for our son, who's eleven.
I felt the information provided was very insufficient, yet I found myself struggling to explain more about it off the top of my head in a way that made sense to him.
So, I gathered more information to provide him, which helped him to understand how it works and why elections work this way.
Following is the bullet-point list of details about the electoral college that I put together (with specific reference to Michigan since that's where we live). I hope you find it helpful!
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The US Constitution says that each state will appoint electors who will vote for president.
The number of electors is equal to the number of the state’s Congressional representatives plus its two senators.
Among all 50 states plus Washington, DC, there are 538 electoral votes (DC has 3 electors). Half of that is 269, so a candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win.
There are two types of vote counts: the popular vote, which is the votes of all Americans, and the electoral vote, which is the votes of appointed electors.
The popular vote does not actually decide who wins the election.
The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which candidate gets all of the votes from that state’s electors.
An elector who does not honor his promise to vote for the candidate determined by the outcome of the state’s popular vote is called a “faithless elector”.
Many states have laws forbidding electors from voting against their obligation, but not all do. Michigan does.
It is possible for a candidate to lose the popular vote and still win the election. This has happened in the past:
In the event of a tie, the decision goes to the House of Representatives. Each state’s representatives would vote on which candidate to support as a group. If there is a tie among the state’s representatives, their state’s votes would not count.
Many people think elections should be decided by the popular vote. They argue that it’s unfair that a candidate can win the popular vote yet lose the election.
But the creators of the Constitution thought that deciding an election by popular vote would give an unfair advantage to the states with the largest populations. That’s why they created the Electoral College.
It is similar to the compromise that was made in the Congress. Some people argued that it would be unfair to small states to have the number of Congress persons based on state population. Others argued that it would be unfair for small states to have equal power in Congress as large states. So, they created a system in which there are two houses of Congress: the House of Representatives, where the number of representatives is based on state population, and the Senate, where each state gets two senators.
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P.S. -- If you're looking for some US history homeschooling curriculum to serve as an antidote to the statist propaganda taught in the government school system, check out the two-volume The Tuttle Twins: America's History.
Homeschooling aside, there is also a whole series of storybooks aimed at teaching kids all about principles of liberty and individual responsibility, so check out The Tuttle Twins books.
Finally, suitable for both adults and older children, check out my friend Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom.
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