The Electoral College was a way in which the states would have a voice in the election of a President. States are represented in the Electoral College according to their total number of representatives in the legislative branch. In other words, a state like Kentucky has six Representatives and two Senators; this means that Kentucky has eight electoral votes.

This system was designed before political parties originated. It was also before very many people had the right to vote. Until the 1820's most states chose their electors in the state legislatures. In the 1820's and 1830's, a political reform movement swept the country and led to several changes in how we nominated and elected a President. The most important of these changes were the extension of the right to vote to the common man and the national convention system of nominating candidates for President.

Since the Electoral College did not work in 1824 (John Quincy Adams was elected by the House), the supporters of Andrew Jackson went to work on the state level and got the vote extended to the common man and they also got most states to allow the Electors to be elected by popular vote. Most states made the rule which still exists in nearly every state. This rule says that whichever candidate gets a plurality of the vote in a state gets all of the electoral vote of that state.

The second Jacksonian reform of the Presidential election system was the National Convention to nominate a candidate. Starting in 1836, both major parties started having national conventions. (This idea was stolen from the Anti-Mason Party.) The political parties were allowed to choose their own method of selecting delegates to the National Convention. Usually Party regulators and elected public officials dominated the conventions in each party. This method continued throughout the Nineteenth Century.

In the early Twentieth Century, during the Progressive period, a new system of selecting Convention delegates emerged. While it was only established in a few states, this method would eventually become the dominant method by the 1970's. This new method was the Presidential Primary. Today, the overwhelming majority of the delegates to both party conventions are chosen by this method. Hubert Humphrey, in 1968, was the last nominee of either party to win the nomination without entering the primaries. It is this long and drawn out primary system that has made the U.S. Presidential contest the longest and most confusing in the Western World. Add the Electoral College system to this and this gives us a system few people in the general population will ever completely comprehend.

It is now time to include an Electoral College map followed by a detailed explanation of how the system works. Explanation of the Electoral College: The number of representatives are determined by the total number of representatives that state has in Congress (Senate and House). For example, KY has 6 Representatives and 2 Senators; therefore 8 electoral votes.

The presidential election should be viewed as 51 separate elections for electoral votes. (50 States and D.C.) The key to victory is to win enough votes to total 270 (a majority of the total of 538) electoral votes. The candidate who wins the most votes in a state gets all the electoral votes of that state.

November (1st Tuesday after the first Monday): Popular vote in each state to determine which party's electors go to the Electoral College.

December: Electoral College meets in each State Capital and in D.C. to cast votes.

January: When Congress opens, the electoral votes are counted and the election is official if both the presidential and the vice-presidential candidate have 270 votes. If no presidential candidate gets the needed 270 votes, the election is decided in the House of Representatives with each state delegation having one vote. (26 votes to win) The Senators, voting individually, will elect the vice-president.

Note: Many would like to change this system, but since it gives small states a larger voice per population, change is very unlikely.