Electoral College
...ctoral College. The delegates at the Constitutional Convention considered several possible methods of selecting a president before deciding that the Electoral College was the best possible method. The original idea of the Electoral College was for the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each state to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to state of origin or political party. The “ Founding Fathers” based the structure of the Electoral College on the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic. It was quite an elaborate design and a clever one when you consider that the whole operation was supposed to work without political parties and without national campaigns. The first design of the Electoral College lasted through only four presidential elections, and then the Congress and the States hastily adopted the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution by September of 1804. By making slight changes, the 12th Amendment altered the design of the Electoral College and accommodated political parties as a fact of life in American presidential elections. In today’s society, the Electoral College operates as a result of design and experience. The broken down version of the Electoral College is that the States are allocated a number of Electors, equal to the number of representatives that the state has plus two (which may change each decade due to the census). Each Elector is pledged to a certain candidate, which they may change when it actually comes down to them voting in the final election. Then, on Election Day, the citizens of each state cast their ballots for the party slate of Electors representing their choice for president and vice-president. So, when citizens go to the ballot and actually think that they are voting for president and vice-president, actually they are voting for the Elector who will make the final decision on who they vote for. Whichever party slate that wins the most votes will become that states Electors. Each Elector is only able to vote once for president and once for vice-president. The persons with the most Electoral votes will be elected president or vice-pre...