{"id":1978,"date":"2020-05-11T15:19:10","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T15:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.ps.uci.edu\/mathceo\/?page_id=1978"},"modified":"2020-05-16T22:12:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-16T22:12:00","slug":"elections","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.ps.uci.edu\/mathceo-old\/meeting-5\/elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Elections 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This year, on November 3rd, there will be an election for the President of the United States. Do you know how the President is chosen? Is it by a direct vote of all US citizens?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How should the leader of a country be chosen? The United States’ method of choosing its leader is by what’s called the Electoral College. This is rather unique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

United States Electoral College System<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The President and the Vice-President of the United States is chosen by the Electoral Collge<\/a> which convenes every four years for the sole purpose of electing the President and the Vice-President. There are 538 electors in all in the Electoral College. Each elector has one vote for the president and an absolute majority of electoral college votes is needed for the candidate to the win the presidency. How many electoral college votes does a presidential candidate need to earn in order to become president?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Rules:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any U.S. citizen age 18 or older can vote in the presidential election. When you vote, you vote for your states’ Electoral College electors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number of electors for each state is the total number of its Senators and House of Representatives in Congress. California has a total of 55 electors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Electoral College votes for each state. Source: Ali Zifan – UCSB.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Except for two states, Maine and Nebraska, the winner of the statewide votes wins all of the electors allotted to that state. Electors typically are pledged to vote for their state’s winning candidate though they are not legally required to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If no single candidate receives an absolute majority from the Electoral College, the House of Representatives then select the President where each state receives a single vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Questions to Ponder<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(1) Can a candidate wins the most votes nationwide and not win the Electoral College? Yes, in fact, this happened in the Presidential Election of 2000 and 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) The Electoral College gives states like Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota with population less than 800,00 with three electoral college votes each, while a populous state like California with nearly 40 million people has only 55 votes. Is that fair? Is the vote of a Californian voter worth the same as that of a North Dakotan voter? Can you guess why the framers of the U.S. Constitution chose to distribute the electoral college votes by Congressional representation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Elections in Other Countries<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Countries have different ways to choose their leaders. Below are three countries with their different methods of choosing their leader:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • Mexico<\/strong>: The President of Mexico is elected directly by its citizens. The candidate winning the most votes (plurality) wins. An absolute majority is not required. The president serves a single six-year term only.<\/li>
  • France:<\/strong> The President of France is elected directly by popular vote. However, if no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, that is an absolute majority, a runoff election is held for the top two vote-getting candidates. The French president can serve only two consecutive terms with each term five-year long.<\/li>
  • Canada:<\/strong> The political leader of the Canadian government is called the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister of Canada is normally the leader of the political party with the largest number of elected representatives in the House of Commons. Members of the House of Commons are chosen directly by the Canadian citizens by plurality vote. Canada’s government is modelled after the United Kingdom. It is a constitutional monarchy officially headed by the Queen of Canada. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    <\/div>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This year, on November 3rd, there will be an election for the President of the United States. Do you know how the President is chosen? Is it by a direct vote of all US citizens? How should the leader of a country be chosen? The United States’ method of choosing its leader is by what’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"parent":1944,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1978","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ps.uci.edu\/mathceo-old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ps.uci.edu\/mathceo-old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ps.uci.edu\/mathceo-old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ps.uci.edu\/mathceo-old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ps.uci.edu\/mathceo-old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1978"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ps.uci.edu\/mathceo-old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2006,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ps.uci.edu\/mathceo-old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1978\/revisions\/2006"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ps.uci.edu\/mathceo-old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ps.uci.edu\/mathceo-old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}