What is an Electoral College?
The Electoral College is made up of men and women who are chosen by each state’s political parties to be the electors for that party’s candidate. Shortly after the national Republican and Democratic Conventions, when the actual candidate for each party is determined, the State Republican and Democratic Committees meet separately to choose their respective electors. New Jersey has 15 electoral votes. The State Republican Party has chosen 15 persons to be its electors and the State Democratic Committee has chosen its own 15 persons to be the Democratic electors. If the Republican candidate wins the popular vote in NJ, all 15 Republican electors get to cast their votes for their candidate. If the Democratic candidate wins, then all 15 of the Democratic electors get to cast their votes.
The Electoral College isn’t the kind of college with students, professors, and football teams. The Electoral College actually refers to the total number of “electoral votes” from all the states. The number of electoral votes a state has depends on that state’s population. Altogether, there are 538 electoral voters and they are chosen by the political parties of each state. A candidate must win at least 270 electoral votes (more than half) to win the presidency. Why do we have an Electoral College? Our Founding Fathers were concerned that voters from smaller states wouldn’t have as much power to elect a President as voters from states with larger populations. Some wanted Congress to choose the President. Others wanted voters to choose. The Electoral College is a compromise between those two points of view. It guarantees that every state will have the ability to affect the election in some way, based on the size of its population. How does the Electoral College work and what happens afte
