US Electoral College elects the President - and all this time I thought it was you and me who did it...
Maybe I was napping in high school when they explained how the President of the United States is elected by the electoral college votes. But as it is Extremely Topical tomorrow in The Old Country, I thought I'd see what I could learn about it now to make-up for this one little, bitty gap in my otherwise encyclopedic knowledge about the US of A. Okay, maybe not encyclopedic, but pull my finger anyway!
As you know, in Australia voting is compulsory. For the Federal election everyone votes for their local representatives from a list of different parties. Without going into tedious detail - the party with the largest number of popularly elected members forms government, and that party determines who its leader will be.
Compare that with the US system where you can, but don't have to as you voting isn't compulsory, vote directly for the President and Vice President, as I've already done by postal vote. The parties nominate their candidates for POTUS and VicePOTUS (or whatever the Secret Service call the #2 on the card) and good old Ralph Nader puts his own name down just to annoy people. BUT, and big BUT! The popular vote doesn't directly determine who actually gets elected in the US.
The electors of the Electoral College do that.
So I visited the US government website for info about this process. See National Archives and Records Administration website for info about this system.
What's interesting is the timeline in this process. Tomorrow in the US - November 4th - is the popular election where citizens vote for the President and VP, and for other elected officials. But the electoral college doesn't meet until December 15th to elect the president. So there will be a lot of media coverage tomorrow, worldwide, as the next US President and VP receive the popular votes, but the real important event doesn't happen until December 15th! And how much press does that date get?
There must be an important 'checks and balances' argument here - otherwise why have a popular vote AND an electoral college vote if the electoral college vote follows the popular vote?
Someone please tell me about this!
As you know, in Australia voting is compulsory. For the Federal election everyone votes for their local representatives from a list of different parties. Without going into tedious detail - the party with the largest number of popularly elected members forms government, and that party determines who its leader will be.
Compare that with the US system where you can, but don't have to as you voting isn't compulsory, vote directly for the President and Vice President, as I've already done by postal vote. The parties nominate their candidates for POTUS and VicePOTUS (or whatever the Secret Service call the #2 on the card) and good old Ralph Nader puts his own name down just to annoy people. BUT, and big BUT! The popular vote doesn't directly determine who actually gets elected in the US.
The electors of the Electoral College do that.
So I visited the US government website for info about this process. See National Archives and Records Administration website for info about this system.
What's interesting is the timeline in this process. Tomorrow in the US - November 4th - is the popular election where citizens vote for the President and VP, and for other elected officials. But the electoral college doesn't meet until December 15th to elect the president. So there will be a lot of media coverage tomorrow, worldwide, as the next US President and VP receive the popular votes, but the real important event doesn't happen until December 15th! And how much press does that date get?
There must be an important 'checks and balances' argument here - otherwise why have a popular vote AND an electoral college vote if the electoral college vote follows the popular vote?
Someone please tell me about this!
posted by Rick's Rambles at 10:51 pm
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