Quick lesson~

What are electoral votes???? What is the electoral college???? I heard these questions again this time around. Here's your Encarata definition:

Electoral College, the institution through which Americans elect the president and vice president of the United States. Many American voters are unaware of the electoral college’s role, in part because they mistakenly believe that they directly elect the president and vice president. In fact, when they cast their ballots for president and vice president, they are voting for officials called electors who are assigned to each presidential candidate.

Each state is allotted a number of electors equal to the number of its representatives and senators in the U.S. Congress. In addition, the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, adopted in 1961, permits residents of the District of Columbia to vote for three electors in the same manner as residents of the states. Through its power of apportioning representatives among the states, Congress determines the number of presidential electors to which each state is entitled. At the present time the total of state and District of Columbia electors is 538; a simple majority of 270 is necessary for election to the presidency.

The electors have only one responsibility: to select the president and vice president. Each presidential candidate has a slate of electors assigned to that candidate. When the candidate wins the popular vote in a state or the District of Columbia, the electors assigned to that candidate are the ones who vote in the electoral college. To do so, they meet in their respective states or the District of Columbia about five weeks after the November presidential election to cast their votes. Normally, the meeting is a mere formality. The electors vote for the presidential candidate who received the greatest number of votes in their state. The electoral college simply ratifies the results of the popular vote.

In most cases the candidate who wins the popular vote also wins the electoral college vote. If the election is close, however, as was the election of 2000, the electoral college may end up picking a candidate who did not receive most of the popular vote (see Disputed Presidential Election of 2000). The candidate who wins the presidency is the one who wins a majority of the electoral college votes, rather than a majority of the popular vote. On four occasions in U.S. history—in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000—the candidate with the most popular votes did not win the presidency because he did not win the most electoral college votes. This is because Americans do not directly elect their president and vice president. If Americans directly elected their president, then the candidate with the most votes would automatically win.