U.S. Politics: #3 The Electoral College

Welcome back to our U.S. Politics show! About today’s topic, The Electoral College, it isn't actually a college, just a name for a group of people.

So, what is this electoral college, anyway? As the name suggests, it has something to do with the election, and that election is the one that happens every 4 years, and elects the president of the U.S. How does it work?

For starters, each state gets an amount of “electoral votes”, for example, California, which has 55. There are 538 electors, 435 representatives, 100 senators and 3 electors from the District of Columbia. The two candidates, Democratic and Republican, try to add up to 270 to win the presidency. Each state’s electoral votes depend on population, not how big it is, so the 2 parties always pay attention to states like New York, Texas, California, and so on, since they have more electoral votes.

If, for example, A and B all want New York, which has 29, then the people vote, and if like A is more than B, than the 29 electoral votes all go to A, leaving none for b. Of course, B couldn't like get 9 and A get the rest.

This system allows smaller states to not be totally ignored.

I think even though this system is complicated, but it's all worth “voting for” a president.