{"id":17441,"date":"2020-08-21T14:00:56","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T18:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=17441"},"modified":"2024-11-19T14:02:23","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T19:02:23","slug":"who-counts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=17441","title":{"rendered":"Who Counts?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?attachment_id=17451\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17451\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-17451\" src=\"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/21.08-may-not.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"219\" height=\"206\" \/><\/a>Linda Lou Burton posting from Little Rock, Arkansas \u2013 <\/em>Interesting, isn\u2019t it, that women fought so long and hard to be allowed to vote, but still must live in the <em>right<\/em> <em>state<\/em> for their vote to count. That\u2019s true for men too! If you favor a Democrat, but live in a state full of Republicans, your vote isn\u2019t worth the paper it\u2019s printed on. And vice versa. In fact, you don\u2019t actually vote for a CANDIDATE at all, though political campaigns are designed to appeal directly to the individual, coddling us with love and promises, if we vote for THEM.<\/p>\n<p>Once our vote is cast, however, it actually starts a ride through the maze known as the Electoral College, and if you recollect, five times since 1788 a candidate has won the <em>popular vote<\/em> but lost the election.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Andrew Jackson in 1824 had 38,149 more votes than John Quincy Adams, but lost.<\/li>\n<li>Samuel Tilden (Dem) in 1876 had 254,235 more votes than Rutherford B Hayes (Rep), but lost.<\/li>\n<li>Grover Cleveland (Dem) in 1888 had 90,596 more votes than Benjamin Harrison (Rep), but lost.<\/li>\n<li>Al Gore (Dem) in 2000 had 543,895 more votes than George W Bush (Rep), but lost.<\/li>\n<li>Hillary Clinton (Dem) in 2016 had 2,868,686 more votes than Donald J Trump (Rep), but lost.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?attachment_id=17452\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17452\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-17452\" src=\"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/22.08.map_-300x191.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"551\" height=\"351\" srcset=\"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/22.08.map_-300x191.png 300w, https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/22.08.map_-1024x653.png 1024w, https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/22.08.map_-768x490.png 768w, https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/22.08.map_.png 1050w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 551px) 100vw, 551px\" \/><\/a>The Electoral College<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve got this memorized from Civics 101 in 6th grade, but just in case the details have gotten fuzzy, here is where your vote goes. Established in Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution, the <em>Electoral College<\/em> is the formal body that elects the President and Vice President of the United States. Each state has as many &#8220;electors&#8221; in the Electoral College as it has Representatives and Senators in the United States Congress, and the District of Columbia has three electors. <em>When voters go to the polls in a Presidential election, they actually are voting for the slate of electors vowing to cast their ballots for that ticket in the Electoral College.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Got that? You are voting for Electors. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Most states require that all electoral votes go to the candidate who receives the plurality in that state. After state election officials certify the popular vote of each state, the winning slate of electors meet in the state capital and cast two ballots\u2014one for Vice President and one for President. Electors cannot vote for a Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate who both hail from an elector\u2019s home state.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But not every state is the same.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Maine and Nebraska employ a \u201cdistrict system\u201d in which two at-large electors vote for the state\u2019s popular plurality and one elector votes for each congressional district\u2019s popular plurality. In the November 2, 2004 election, Colorado voters rejected a \u201cproportional system\u201d in which electors would vote proportionally based on the state\u2019s popular vote.<\/p>\n<p>The District of Columbia and 26 states \u201cbind\u201d their electors to vote for their promised candidate, via a number of methods including oaths and fines. Though still rare, electors more commonly changed their vote in the 19th century\u2014particularly on the vote for Vice President. Such \u201cfaithless electors\u201d have never decided a Presidency however.<\/p>\n<p>There has been one faithless elector in each of the following elections: 1948, 1956, 1960, 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1988. A blank ballot was cast in 2000. <em>In 2016, seven electors broke with their state on the presidential ballot and six did so on the vice presidential ballot.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Faithless Electors! But to continue &#8211; A Job You Wouldn\u2019t Want<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Since the mid-20th century, on January 6 at 1:00 pm before a Joint Session of Congress, the Vice President opens the votes from each state in alphabetical order. He passes the votes to four tellers\u2014two from the House and two from the Senate\u2014who announce the results. House tellers include one Representative from each party and are appointed by the Speaker. At the <a href=\"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?attachment_id=17453\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17453\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-17453\" src=\"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/21.08-al-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/21.08-al-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/21.08-al.jpg 667w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/a>end of the count, the Vice President then declares the name of the next President. With the ratification of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution (and starting with the 75th Congress in 1937), the electoral votes are counted before the newly sworn-in Congress, elected the previous November. <em>Sitting Vice Presidents John C. Breckinridge (1861), Richard Nixon (1961), Hubert Humphrey (1969), and Al Gore (2001) all had to announce that they had lost their own bid for the Presidency. <a href=\"https:\/\/history.house.gov\/\">https:\/\/history.house.gov\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>There have been a total of 165 instances of elector <em>faithlessness<\/em> as of 2016. The United States Constitution does not specify a notion of pledging; no federal law or constitutional statute binds an elector&#8217;s vote to anything. All pledging laws originate at the state level. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Chiafalo v. Washington that states are free to enforce laws that bind electors to voting for the winner of the popular vote in their state.<\/p>\n<p>Supporters of the Electoral College argue that it is fundamental to American federalism, that it requires candidates to appeal to voters outside large cities, increases the political influence of small states, preserves the two-party system, and makes the electoral outcome appear more legitimate.<\/p>\n<p>Non-supporters would argue that the Electoral College places powers governing a national election within state boundaries and removes the ability of the individual to select their leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Linda Lou Burton posting from Little Rock, Arkansas \u2013 Interesting, isn\u2019t it, that women fought so long and hard to be allowed to vote, but still must live in the right state for their vote to count. That\u2019s true for men too! If you favor a Democrat, but live in a state full of Republicans, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3464],"tags":[3949,3951,3945,3944,3950,3948,3077,3947,3946],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17441"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17441"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17455,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17441\/revisions\/17455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}