The guest speaker for the meeting was Stephen Marantelli. Stephen spoke to us about the US electoral system especially as it relates to the election of the President.The electoral college is based on the allocation to each state corresponding to the total allocation of House of Representative members and Senators. This is how the 270 to win comes about, it is a majority of the 538 House of Representative and Senate allocations. The election of the President is a state based system with each state able to make decisions about how it will be administered. Arrangements vary from state to state.

 

Stephen pointed out that the election of the President is a two step process. In the first instance voters cast their vote for their preferred candidate. The result of the election in each state is then confirmed by presidential electors. Each party nominates the number of presidential electors corresponding to its allocation from the electoral college. The Presidential electors of the party who wins the majority in each state then vote for the candidates or in some instances could vote for someone not on the ballot. Even though they give an oath to vote for their party's candidate, that doesn't always happen.

 

Each state has rules about how to deal with faithless electors. In some states they are replaced. In other states their vote count. In these situations you can have absurd outcomes like voting for the opposition or even voting for someone not on the ballot. There were seven votes in 2016 for people not on the ballot,Colin Powell was one example Stephen mentioned. The whole system gets more complicated when you consider there are winner take all arrangements in some states and proportional allocations in others.

 

Stephen concluded that the biggest difficulty with the system is that it can skew the vote. He quoted the 1912 example where Woodrow Wilson (Democratic) won 42% of the popular vote and 82% of the electoral college. It is interesting to note in that year that the incumbent, William Taft (Republican) only won 8 electoral college votes.Theodore Roosevelt stood against him and split the Republican vote. Stephen went on further to say the system is crazy, I think we would all agree. We are most grateful to Stephen for giving the time to be our guest and thank him for his very well researched presentation.