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Monday, November 5, 2012


Tomorrow is Election Day, and while millions of voters stream to the polls, many of them are unaware that they are not voting for the president. The president is elected by the Electoral College. So what does the Electoral College do?




Today's Random Fact:

The U.S. Electoral College is the body of elected officials who actually vote for the president of the United States. The writers of the Constitution developed the concept of an indirect presidential election to make sure that every state, whether large or small, has proportional representation in the presidential election. A presidential candidate thus needs support throughout the country to win.

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Bonus Fact:

In most states, the Electoral College works on a "winner-take-all" system: the candidate with the most votes in the state gets all of that state's electoral votes. The only two states that differ are Maine and Nebraska, which choose two electors by the statewide popular vote and the rest by the vote in each Congressional district.

Four times in American history a presidential candidate has won by electoral votes but not by the popular vote. The most recent instance is in the 2000 election between George Bush and Al Gore.