What is the electoral vote vs the popular vote? (US)
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When the United States was founded, the founding fathers wanted to find a way to equalize the power between states with large population and small populations. Thus they created the Electoral College for deciding the president. Each state gets a number of electors based on their total number of senator and representatives (so a minimum of 3, but more based on population.) After the popular vote, the electors would then report to the capital and vote to reflect their state’s popular vote. This system made it possible to keep the voting process quick and easy in a time before technology and the internet since instead of counting hundreds of thousands of ballots to determine the president, the federal government only had to count a number of votes equal to the Senate and House seats, which it could handle since the House and Senate are branches of the federal government; each state was given the authority to find a way to count their own votes. It also still gave the people a voice in their elections as the electors voted based on the state’s popular vote. In modern times, the system is still in place, but works differently than it originally did; the biggest difference being unfaithful electors which is an on going issue. Some groups are trying to either remove the electoral college all together, or force it to directly reflect the popular vote. We’ll see how it all plays out over time.
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