Question

Define the Electoral College?

What is the minimum number of electoral votes a state can have?

What is the total number of electoral votes available nationwide? Explain your answer

What is the minimum number of electoral votes needed for a presidential candidate to win the Presidency? Explain

Explain winner take all system for the Electoral College

Define a swing state and provide 2 examples

Answer 1

Ans 1: The Electoral College is a system of voting in which each state is allotted a number of “electors” who are sworn to vote for the candidate who wins the popular vote in that particular state, with the two exceptions being “the states of Maine and Nebraska, which split their electoral votes in proportion to the popular vote (Levin-Waldman, 2012).

Ans 2: The number of electoral votes in a given state is based on their congressional representation. Each state gets two votes for each Senator (every state has two) and an additional vote for each member of the House of Representatives, which is based on state population.

Ans 3: The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your state's entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your Senators.

Ans 4: The candidate who wins at least 270 electoral votes becomes President. There are a total of 538 electoral votes. In order to become President, a candidate needs to win one more than half, or 270.

Ans 5: The District of Columbia and 48 states have a winner-takes-all rule for theElectoral College. In these States, whichever candidate receives a majority of the popular vote, or a plurality of the popular vote (less than 50 percent but more than any other candidate), takes all of the state's Electoral votes.

Ans 6: Swing states are those in which neither major political party holds a lock on the outcome of presidential elections. The term can also be used to describe a state whose electoral votes have a high probability of being the deciding factor in a presidential election. For e.g.

1. New Hampshire: Four electoral votes. The state has split its vote between the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees in the past 10 elections.
2. Ohio: 18 electoral votes. The state has split its vote between the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees in the past 10 elections.