Quote:
Originally Posted by epchick
Just an FYI...but this doesn't always happen. The electors of each state can decide to ignore the popular vote (of their state) and vote for whoever they want.
It happened in the 2000 presidential election. Al Gore won the popular vote, Bush won the electoral vote.
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Uh.... I have to correct you here. In 2000, Al Gore did indeed win the overall popular vote. But he just didn't win the right combination of states to capture the electoral vote. None of the electors changed their vote or voted for someone other than the person they were obligated to. You might argue that Florida SHOULD have sent Democrat electors to the electoral college, but they sent Republican ones for better or worse.
Bear in mind that technically we're not even voting for president but for electors who have pledged to vote for a specific person for president.
Every state has a winner-take-all system when it comes to electors, except for Maine and Alaska.
Electors are obligated to vote for the candidate that wins the majority in their state. An elector who does not vote for the candidate they are pledged to vote is termed a "faithless elector" and is relatively rare. We're talking maybe 1 elector per election and often none. Not anything that's thrown an election to a different candidate. Ever. In the entire history of the USA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector
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