Lori Kutil, age 12, of Visalia, Calif., for her question:
HOW ARE ELECTORAL COLLEGE MEMBERS SELECTED?
From 1789 until 1801, each elector in the Electoral College had two votes. In our first election of 1789, all 69 electors voted for George Washington and 34 voted for John Adams. The rest of the votes were for other people. Washington, of course, was named to the position of President and John Adams, coming in second in the balloting, was elected Vice President.
A provision stating that the President shall be elected by a body of electors is in the U.S. Constitution. Each state has as many votes in this body, which is called the Electoral College, as the total of its senators and representatives in Congress. The 23rd Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1961, gives the District of Columbia three electoral votes.
State conventions or committees from each political party select the candidates for presidential electors. In some states, ballots list the presidential and vice presidential candidates but do not list the proposed electors. For this reason, some voters do not realize that they are not voting directly for the President and Vice President.
In the general election, the candidate who wins the highest number of the state's popular votes, which is called a plurality, usually receives all of the state's electoral votes. It is because of this system that a candidate who does not have a majority of the popular votes may be elected.
In December following the presidential election, on a day set by law, the duly elected members of the Electoral College cast their ballots. They usually meet in their state's capital. Results of their balloting are then sent under seal to the President of the U.S. Senate.
At a joint session in the House of Representatives in January, four tellers count the votes. Handling this chore is one Republican and one Democrat from each house.
The candidate who receives a majority of the electoral votes for President is declared elected. If no candidate has a majority, the state delegations in the House of Representatives choose the President from the three candidates having the largest number of electoral votes from the Electoral College.
If no candidate wins a majority of the electoral votes for Vice President, the Senate elects a person from the two candidates with the highest number of electoral votes.
Some have proposed the abolishing of the Electoral College, urging a direct election of the President by the people. This, many believe, would tend to reduce the importance of the states in the federal system of government. It has been claimed that a direct election might encourage third and fourth parties which could result in the election of a President who received only a minority of the popular votes cast.