The Electoral College

Yesterday on Tweetfleet I was running a 140 character at a time primer on the US election system for several friends from around the world. Our system can be a tad confusing every four years to those not familiar with it. Heck, it can be confusing to Americans as well.
This young man is obviously very confused about it.

There are a bunch of good video primers available. Here is one from CNN that is very good.

As a life-long student of history and a proud American citizen who cares about his country, let me try to TL;DR the entire thing for you.

The "United States of America" is not just a name, it also happens to be how our country is built. It isn't one large country, but a collection of States that have agreed to a Federal system that can govern and provide for the common defense and welfare of the country. Before the Civil War this system tended to put the power into the hands of the States themselves and the Federal government was much, much weaker than it is now. After the Civil War the Federal government became more powerful and has grown into the behemoth it is today. We can argue the wisdom of all that, but it is how it is.

Ok so the founding Fathers in all their compromising wisdom decided on a government system intended to be as balanced as humanly possible. Which is why we have three branches of government, this system of checks and balances is pretty darn brilliant. However, from time to time in our history one branch or another can sometimes become more powerful than intended. Right now, after 16 years of Bush and Obama, the Executive branch has accumulated unprecedented powers. This is one of the things that worry some people in regards to Trump's election.

But back to the Electoral College. The Legislative Branch of government has two sides, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate has exactly 100 members, two from each State. In this way every single State in the US gets the exact same representation. No matter how small or how big, you only get two Senators. The House of Representatives (or Congress) membership is based on population and there are about 430 seats in Congress up for grabs. Bigger States get more seats and smaller States get less seats. Add the number of Senators and the number of Representatives together and you have the Electoral College number for that State! For example, the State I live in Pennsylvania has 20 Electoral College votes, which means we have 2 Senators and 18 members of Congress.

Normally this system works just fine. But sometimes it can get a bit wonky. It is a human system after all. A few times in our history, like this week, a candidate can actually get more popular votes and still lose the election. This is the system working as intended. The reason for this is to avoid the popular vote becoming the way we determine a victor. If we did that, as the young man in the video demands, chaos would ensue. In that system only the votes in large coastal states would matter, effectively you'd have New York and California determining the winner in each election. And also getting the bulk of Federal aid and support afterwards. The Electoral system is not perfect, but it does ensure that even the smallest of States gets a voice.

And please remember that this system is ONLY for Presidential elections. Popular vote matters in ALL other elections. Local, County, State and Federal elections are all based on popular vote, only the President is elected on the Electoral system. This is an important fact to keep in mind. A citizen's representation is more than just the President. The President has extremely limited powers and cannot enact any Laws. In fact he or she cannot really do much of anything. The President is a leader not a dictator.

And while this system is certainly not perfect it exists for valid reasons that have been proven to work well over 200+ years of our history. It has survived a Civil War, two World Wars, several horribly wrong Wars, Watergate, a Great Depression, and much, much more. And it will survive Trump.

Hope this helped.