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Popular Participation: Exercise 7 - Presidential election


Instructions: Read the passage and click on the correct answer. If wrong, try again. Scroll down if you do not see the Answer box.
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Electing the President

     The presidential election in the U.S. attracts more attention because whoever wins the race will be the most powerful political leader in the world for four years. Although the largest number of Americans vote to choose the president, the popular vote (the votes of the people) does not actually elect the president. The president is elected by the electoral college.

     The electoral college is a complex system of election. Under this system, every state is assigned a number of electoral votes. Electoral votes are votes that are given by electors on Election Day to determine the winner among presidential candidates. Electors are loyal members of a party chosen to vote for the party's candidate for president. The total number of electors in each state for each party is equal to the number of the state's senators, which is always two, and the number of its house representatives, which depends on the population of the state. For example, if a state is assigned 15 electoral votes (equal to the number of its senators and House representatives), each party that nominates a presidential candidate in that state selects its own 15 electors. On Election Day, only the party whose presidential candidate wins the most votes (a plurality) in that state wins all the 15 electoral votes of the state. The other parties get none of the electoral votes. This means that a presidential candidate who wins the most votes of a state wins all the electoral votes of that state. Then, the electors of the winning party from each state meet in the state capitals to vote for the president and vice president. The candidate who has gotten the majority of the electoral votes becomes president.
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