Many Americans think that when they cast their ballot, they are voting for their chosen candidate for a better government. In actuality they are selecting groups of electors in the electoral college. A candidate must receive an absolute majority of electoral votes (currently 270) to win the Presidency.The election for President and Vice President is not a direct election by United States citizens. Citizens vote for electors, representing a state, who are the authorized constitutional participants in a presidential election.
Indirectly, the voting citizens of the United States. Directly, however, the President is elected by the electors from each state. How these electors are chosen is left up to each state. Some states give all electors to the individual who got the most votes in the election, while other states apportion the electors according to the percentage of votes the candidate earned in the election.
It is difficult to answer this question: every four years, there is a presidential election, and each time, the results are influenced by different factors. These factors include whether the voters think the country is on the right track or whether they believe it's time for a change; how effectively each candidate states his or her case for why they should be elected; and how well each candidate is able to motivate people to get out and vote.
There are many reasons why a person might choose a certain candidate to be the president. Many people vote for the person who comes from the party they support-- in America, there are two major political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans; there are also some smaller parties like the Libertarians or the Green Party. Some people vote for a candidate who inspires them, or whose ideas seem to offer a positive vision for improving the country. And some people are not fond of either of the major candidates, so they vote for one of the smaller party's candidates, even though that person will probably not win the election.
counting the electoral votes that were cast in the presidential election
A Presidential candidate must obtain 270 Electoral Votes (the vote cast in the electoral college of the U.S. by the representatives of each state in a presidential election) to be elected President of the United States.
In Texas the Vote was: * 4,479,328 for McCain the Republican. * 3,528,633 for Obama the Democratic Candidate. * 5,214 votes for Nader the Independent Candidate. * 56,116 votes for Barr the Libertarian. * 5,052 votes for Baldwin the Constitution Candidate * 671 votes for Mckinney the Green Candidate. * 2,781 votes were cast for others.
Every one of the 51 governments that appoint the electors of the U. S. President and Vice President currently uses public election to determine which candidates will get its votes. The District of Columbia, Arkansas and every other state except Maine and Nebraska each casts ALL of its votes for the Presidential candidate and the Vice Presidential candidate who received the most votes in its public election.The number of electors each of the states may appoint is equal to the total number of Senate and House seats that state has in the U. S. Congress. Every state has two U. S. Senators, and Arkansas has had four congressmen in the U. S. House of Representatives since 1963. Therefore, Arkansas casts six votes in each Presidential election and each Vice Presidential election through and including the elections of 2020. The number of votes Arkansas will cast in 2024 and 2028 depends on the result of the 2021 congressional reapportionment, and that depends on the results of the 2020 U. S. Census.
How a state allocates its electoral votes is up to that state. Most states allocate all electoral votes to the candidate with more votes than any other candidate in that state; this is called a plurality. Note, however, that some states require the electors to cast their ballots in the Electoral College for the winner of the popular vote, but others have no such requirement.
Electoral votes in the Electoral College determine the President of the United States. The electors are elected by popular vote in each state and each candidate for elector swears in advance whom he will vote for.
In both the 2000 and 2004 Presidential election, all of Colorado's electoral votes were cast for the Republican candidate, George W. Bush.
The Electoral College
The Electoral College
If this should happen, the electoral college would most likely cast their votes for the vice-presidential candidate of the dead winning candidate.
The party of each candidate selects a slate of state electors. It is these people we actually vote for when we cast a ballot for president, not the candidate. The slate with the most votes gets to cast electoral votes for the President. Although each elector is sworn to vote for a specific candidate, there is no control on how they can vote and occasionally there is a "faithless" elector who crosses his party either by mistake or on purpose.
counting the electoral votes that were cast in the presidential election
A Presidential candidate must obtain 270 Electoral Votes (the vote cast in the electoral college of the U.S. by the representatives of each state in a presidential election) to be elected President of the United States.
Votes cast by individual voters in the presidential election are their way of expressing their choice for the candidate they want to see become the next president. Each voter has the opportunity to select their preferred candidate by marking their ballot on Election Day or submitting it through mail-in or early voting methods. These individual votes are then tallied and used to determine the winner of the election.
Pennsylvania cast 6,013,272 votes in the 2008 presidential election, translating into 21 electoral votes which were cast for Barack Obama (D).
In the U.S. presidential election of 1872, Horace Greeley, the Democratic Party Presidential Nominee, died 24 days after the casting of the popular votes and 17 days before the casting of the electoral votes. If he had survived the election, based on the November election results, even with 100% of the votes from each of the states he won he would have gotten a total of only 18.7% of the votes.
About 5.5 million votes were cast in the 2008 Presidential election.