[derosa8]

To Dr. Gutzman or anyone else who is knowledgeable on this:

Some questions about the electoral college.

(1) How exactly do Nebraska and Maine’s electors vote?

(2) Must the electors of the other 48 states vote for the candidate who wins the popular vote in their state? Or may they do otherwise? (If so, has that ever happened?)

(3) Would it be constitutional for a state legislature to vote on adopting a proportional system of dividing electors based on popular vote? In other words, say 80% of NJ wen for candidate X and 20% went for candidate Y. Then, X would get 80% of NJ’s electoral college votes and Y would get 20% of NJ’s electoral college votes. I’m not saying this is a good or bad idea, I just was curious if it was legal.

[gutzmank]

The states may apportion their electors in whichever way their respective legislatures decide. In the first several elections, quite a few states’ legislatures cast their votes without taking any kind of popular vote. South Carolina didn’t have a popular vote for presidential electors until Reconstruction.

Maine and Nebraska presently award one electoral vote to the winner of the popular vote in each of their congressional districts and their remaining two electoral votes to the winners of their state-wide tallies. It was common in the Early Republic for electoral votes to be allocated that way.

[derosa8]

Thanks for the clear explanation.

[cboyack]

This article answers your second question.

[Author]

Posts