NATIONAL CANDIDATES
May 18, 2010 Primary Election
ELECTORAL COLLEGE
The Electoral College was established by the founding fathers as a compromise between election of the president by Congress and election by popular vote. Voters actually cast their ballot for electors who then vote for the President and Vice President. Every four years, the 538 members of the Electoral College, a little known feature of our Constitution, meet in their respective states to perform their sole constitutional function: to elect the President and Vice-President of the United States. Under the Electoral College system, almost all of the states award their electoral votes on a winnertake-all basis, so that the candidate who receives the most popular votes in a state receives all of that state’s electoral votes. Two ballots are taken, with each elector casting one vote for the President and one for the Vice-President. Electors almost always vote for the candidates to whom they have been pledged. However, the Constitution does not bind them to do so.