This is the second part of our blog post series, Data Literacy for U.S. Voters. In the first part, we touched on the timing of U.S. elections, from the White House all the way down to your local school board. In this installment, we’ll consider the basic rules of determining the winner of races at various levels of government.

We’ll focus most of our attention on the Electoral College, the system whereby the president and vice president of the United States are chosen every four years. This method of determining a winner isn’t as straightforward as the others, and it’s the most hotly debated.

The Most Common Decision Method: A Plurality

We’ll come back to the race for the White House in a moment. For now, let’s consider other races in federal, state, and local elections. The vast majority of them are decided based on a plurality voting system known as the first-past-the-post method (a horse racing term). With this method, the candidate with the most votes wins, even if they don’t receive over 50% of the votes.

If there are only two candidates, then the winner will, by definition, get more than 50% of the votes. But if there are three or more candidates, it’s possible that the candidate with the most votes gets less than half. With plurality voting, they’re still declared the winner. In other words, the winner only needs to receive more votes than any other candidate (a plurality), not necessarily more than 50% (a majority). Far less common are runoff elections, in which a second round is held between the top two candidates if no candidate receives a majority (over 50%).

Most races in the United States involve a choose-one ballot , in which voters mark a single bubble next to their favorite candidate. In other, less common cases, a form of ranked-choice voting (RCV) is used, allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference (marking “1”, “2”, “3”, etc.) instead of choosing just one candidate. For instance, instant-runoff voting (IRV), a form of RCV, is used by Maine and Alaska for some state and federal races, as well as by a few dozen cities (including Seattle and Utah) for local elections.

Choosing a President: The Electoral College

And now we get to the controversial part. How does the United States decide on a president every four years? Enter the Electoral College. It’s not a school with a campus and professors, it’s a group of people that’s formed every four years to cast votes for president. Each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. get to choose electors to cast votes on their behalf. There are 538 total electoral college votes, and if any one of the candidates gets more than half of them (a majority of electoral college votes), then that ticket wins. So a presidential candidate needs to get at least 270 electoral college votes in order to win the election.

But how many electoral college votes does each state get to cast? Here’s how the 538 total votes gets divided up:

• 435: Each state gets one elector for each of its House Representatives (1 × 435)
• 100: Each state gets one elector for each of its two senators (2 × 50)
• 3: The nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., which has no Senators or Representatives, get’s 3 electors (1 × 3)
• 435 +100 + 3 = 538

Based on this system, states with large populations get a relatively high number of electors. California gets 54 electoral college votes – more than 10% of the total number of votes. Texas gets 40 votes, Florida gets 30 votes, and New York gets 28 votes. Each of these states had more than 20 million residents as of 2020, the year of the last decennial census. On the other end of the spectrum, 7 places currently get the minimum of 3 electoral college votes: Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, Wyoming, and Washington D.C. Each of these places had fewer than 1 million residents in the last census. For a full spreadsheet of state populations and electoral college vote counts, see this online spreadsheet.

This choropleth tile map gives a perspective of how the number of electoral college votes for each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. is distributed:

Assigning Electoral College Votes

It makes sense that more populous states would get more electoral college votes, and it’s a natural outcome of the way the seats in the House of Representatives are allocated. Remember, each state gets one elector for each of its House Representatives. And as we learned, there are 435 seats in the House in all. But how many Representatives does each state get?

The allocation of the 435 House of Representatives seats to each state is done through a process called apportionment. Every ten years, the U.S. Census Bureau counts the population of each state – the decennial census. Then, the 435 seats are allocated based on state population. First, each state gets at least one Representative, so the first 50 are already locked in. After that, the remaining 385 seats are apportioned based on the “Method of Equal Proportions” whose goal, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is “to minimize the relative (or percentage) differences in representation (the number of people per representative) among the states.”

How Do the Electors Actually Vote?

The process of electors voting is more complex than it might seem at first glance:

1. Slate of Electors: Each political party in a state submits a slate of electors. These are typically party loyalists chosen by the party.
2. Winner-Take-All in Most States: In 48 states and the District of Columbia, whichever candidate wins the popular vote in that state gets all of that state’s electoral votes. This means that the winning candidate’s entire slate of electors is chosen to cast the electoral votes.
3. Maine and Nebraska’s Unique Approach: These two states use a different method called the “congressional district method”:
   • Each state’s two senate-based electoral votes are awarded to the statewide popular vote winner.
   • One electoral vote is allocated to the popular vote winner in each congressional district (2 in Maine, 3 in Nebraska).
   • This can result in a split electoral vote from these states.
4. Casting the Votes: On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December following the election, the chosen electors meet in their respective state capitals to cast their votes for president and vice president.
5. Faithless Electors: While electors are generally expected to vote for their party’s candidate, some states have laws binding electors to vote according to the popular vote results. However, “faithless electors” who vote contrary to expectations have occurred, though – to date – this has never affected the outcome of a presidential election.

This system, far from perfect, is a compromise that tries to balance elements of both federal and state-level decision-making in the presidential election process. In a way, it’s a good reflection of the complex federal structure of the U.S. government.

Where Imbalances Come In

This system results in some interesting imbalances. We know that different states get different numbers of electors. At first, it might seem that the process of choosing a president unfairly favors the residents of larger states like California and Texas. After all, they get more electoral college votes than the smaller states. It turns out, though, that the process actually favors the residents of the smallest states. Why is that?

Because if we normalize the number of electoral college votes on a per capita basis – meaning we divide the number of votes by each state’s population – we find that the four states with the largest populations in 2020 (and still the four most populous in 2023) have the lowest ratios of electoral college votes per million residents:

• Texas: 2023 population = 30,503,301, electors = 40, ratio = 1.31
• Florida: 2023 population = 22,610,726, electors = 30, ratio = 1.33
• California: 2023 population = 38,965,193, electors = 54, ratio = 1.39
• New York: 2023 population = 19,571,216, electors = 28, ratio = 1.43

On the other end of the spectrum, the four places (three states plus D.C.) that had the lowest populations in 2020 (and still the four least populous in 2023) currently have the highest ratios of electoral college votes per million residents:

• Wyoming: 2023 population = 584,057, electors = 3, ratio = 5.14
• Vermont: 2023 population = 647, 464, electors = 3, ratio = 4.63
• Washington, D.C.: 2023 population = 678,972, electors = 3, ratio = 4.42
• Alaska: 2023 population = 733,406, electors = 3, ratio = 4.09 

If we update our hex tile map and shade the 51 places by the number of electoral college votes per million residents, here’s what we get:

Another way to see the relationship between the current populations of each state and their number of electoral college votes per million residents is to use a scatter plot. Here, each dot is a state, and their horizontal positions (x-axis) are proportional to their 2023 populations, and their vertical positions (y-axis) are proportional to their normalized number of electoral college votes – per million residents:

Other Quirks About the Electoral College System

One obvious discrepancy that can arise is that the winner of the electoral college system doesn’t necessarily win the most NUMBER of states. A candidate could win several large, populous states with many electoral votes (like California, Texas, Florida, and New York) while losing in a greater number of smaller states. This could result in winning the Electoral College despite losing in more individual states.

There’s an even more interesting discrepancy, though, that’s discussed far more often: the winner of the electoral college isn’t necessarily the winner of the overall popular vote, either in terms of a plurality (winning the highest percentage of votes among all candidates) OR in terms of an outright majority (winning greater than 50% of all votes cast). It isn’t exactly likely or common that this misalignment occurs, but it’s a historical fact, and has already occurred in 5 elections:

• 1824: Andrew Jackson (41.4%) won a plurality of the popular vote, but John Quincy Adams (30.9%) became president
• 1876: Samuel Tilden (50.9%) won a majority of the popular vote, but Rutherford B. Hayes (47.9%) became president
• 1888: Grover Cleveland (48.6%) won a plurality of the popular vote, but Benjamin Harrison (47.8%) became president
• 2000: Al Gore (48.4%) won a plurality of the popular vote, but George W. Bush (47.9%) became president
• 2016: Hillary Clinton (48.2%) won a plurality of the popular vote, but Donald Trump (46.1%) became president

The election in 1824 was further notable in that no candidate received a majority (over half) of the electoral college votes. That triggered an interesting tie-breaker scenario in which the House of Representatives was tasked with choosing the president from among the top three electoral vote recipients. Each state delegation in the House got one vote. Despite Andrew Jackson receiving the most electoral votes initially, the House ultimately chose John Quincy Adams as president. This was the last time the House of Representatives has decided a presidential election under the 12th Amendment procedure for breaking Electoral College deadlocks.

Resources

Here are a handful of helpful online resources related to election data and the electoral college system:

1. National Archives: Electoral College Information
   https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college
2. MIT Election Data and Science Lab
   https://electionlab.mit.edu/
3. Brennan Center for Justice: Voting Rights and Elections
   https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote
4. U.S. Election Assistance Commission
   https://www.eac.gov/

These resources provide in-depth information about the Electoral College, voting systems, and election processes in the United States. They offer a mix of historical context, current data, and discussions about potential reforms.

Common Misconceptions

Here are a few common misconceptions about the timing of elections in the United States:

1. “The Electoral College is a place”: The Electoral College is a process, not a physical location or institution.
2. “The candidate who wins the most states always wins the election”: It’s possible to win the presidency while winning fewer states, as the number of electoral votes per state varies.
3. “The popular vote winner always becomes president”: This is not always true. In five U.S. presidential elections (1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016), the winner of the electoral college (and thus the presidency) did not win the national popular vote.
4. “Each state’s number of electoral college votes is proportional to their population”: While the number of electoral votes is based partly on population, it’s not strictly proportional. Each state gets a minimum of three electoral votes (for two Senators and at least one Representative), which gives less populous states disproportionately more electoral votes per capita.

Critical Thinking Points

As you navigate the election calendar, ask yourself:

• How does the Electoral College system affect campaign strategies? Consider why candidates focus on certain states more than others.
• What are the pros and cons of the Electoral College system versus a direct popular vote?
• How might the outcome of elections differ if the U.S. used a different voting system, such as ranked-choice voting?
• Consider the balance between state interests and individual voter interests in the current system. Is this balance appropriate for modern America?
• How does the Electoral College system impact voter turnout and engagement, particularly in non-competitive states?

Next up in our series: we’ll consider a favorite topic: favorability polls