Electoral College facts

While investigating facts about Electoral College Map and Electoral College History, I found out little known, but curios details like:

Because of the electoral college, a presidential candidate can win with only 23% of the popular vote.

how electoral college works?

By taking advantage of the electoral college, a US presidential candidate can win with only 22% of the popular vote

What's electoral college vote?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what electoral college mean. Here are 50 of the best facts about Electoral College Explained and Electoral College Votes By State I managed to collect.

what's electoral college?

One of the reasons America has Electoral College is because James Madison was worried about "tyranny of the majority", which involves a scenario in which a majority places its own interests above those of a minority group.
In the USA, a candidate could win the electoral college while winning only about 22% of the nationwide popular vote.
Alexander Hamilton thought the electoral college would ensure that “the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”
James Monroe, the fifth President, received every Electoral College vote except one. The holdout: a New Hampshire delegate who wanted to preserve the legacy of George Washington, the first and only President elected unanimously by the Electoral College.
Gerald Ford is the only person to become the President without having been previously voted into either the presidential or vice presidential office by the Electoral College.
James K. Polk (often called the "least known consequential president") advocated for the abolishment of the Electoral college, instead believing the POTUS should be elected by popular vote.
The Every Vote Counts Amendment is a proposed Amendment that abolishes the electoral college for presidential elections
More Constitutional amendments have been proposed to reform or eliminate the Electoral College than on any other subject.
The Electoral college was formed out of compromise between "North" and "South" pre-civil war, along with the "3/5ths compromise" , and is directly tied to slavery
Those "maps" that skew geography to better represent other relevant data (e.g. electoral college votes per state) are called "cartograms".

electoral college facts — What electoral college system?

Electoral College data charts

For your convenience take a look at Electoral College figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.

electoral college fact data chart about Votes per Person in US Electoral College System — Votes per Person in US Electoral College System

electoral college fact data chart about US Electoral College "Single Vote Power" — US Electoral College "Single Vote Power"

Why electoral college is bad?

You can easily fact check why electoral college is important by examining the linked well-known sources.

It's possible to become president of the united states with only 22% of the popular vote thanks to the electoral college.

Guam, 15 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, has correctly chosen the winner of every presidential election since 1980 (except for in 1996, when a typhoon hit Guam). However, votes from Guam don't count, as the island has no representation in the Electoral College. - source

Gerald Ford is the only person to have served as both Vice President and President of the United States without being elected by the Electoral College. - source

Andrew Jackson became known as the ‘people's president" because he believed that the people should have the right to elect their president, and he abolished the electoral college.

Alexander Hamilton wrote that the electoral college was established in part to prevent unqualified candidates with "talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity" from being elected president. - source

When electoral college created?

If no US presidential candidate wins an absolute majority of votes in the Electoral College, the president is decided by a vote in the House of Representatives

How electoral college is chosen?

A faithless elector is a member of the Electoral College who does not vote for the presidential or vice presidential candidate for whom he or she had pledged to vote. And there has been 157 cases where a state's electoral vote did not go to the candidate that the state's populace voted for.

The electoral college was created to benefit southern slave states, not to benefit states with lower populations

James Monroe ran unopposed for US President in 1820, and nearly won the entire Electoral College (he should have, but there was a faithless elector)

Washington was the only president unanimously elected by Electoral College to first and second terms

Vice President Gore, as VP, "was required to preside over his own Electoral College defeat (by five votes)". He also denied objections to the vote-count that were raised (that would have benefited his candidacy), as they didn't have the required minimum support.

Electoral college infographics

Beautiful visual representation of Electoral College numbers and stats to get perspecive of the whole story.

electoral college fact infographic about Racial Bias in the Allocation of Electoral College Votes (19 — Racial Bias in the Allocation of Electoral College Votes (1980-2016)

electoral college fact infographic about Word Cloud of United States Electoral College by Voting Powe — Word Cloud of United States Electoral College by Voting Power

When electoral college established?

The only countries using an electoral college system include: Burundi, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Myanmar, Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago and Vanuatu. And the United States Electoral College is the ONLY current example of a system in which an executive president is indirectly elected.

In 1936 FDR won the most one-sided Presidential Election (in terms of electoral college votes) 523-8.

States are signing a legislation that would effectively nullify the Electoral College and give us a popular vote.

The last time a 3rd party presidential candidate got electoral college votes was 1968--when George Wallace ran on a pro-segregation ticket and won 43 (of 538 total) votes in the south

In the 2004 Presidential Election, one elector in the electoral college voted for "John Ewards", a misspelling of John Kerry's running mate, instead of John Kerry.

How electoral college votes are allocated?

Federal law permitted each state to conduct presidential elections at any time in a 34-day period before the first Wednesday of December, when the Electoral College met. Since early voting could affect turnout and sway opinions in states with later elections, a uniform date was chosen in 1845.

That the electoral college was intentionally designed so that it would rarely produce a majority winner; the founding fathers anticipated most presidential elections to be decided by Congress.

That, in the 1872 election for the US presidency, the opposition candidate died after the popular vote but before the Electoral College met up. President Grant was easily reelected.

Americans could bypass the electoral college and elect the president by national popular vote without amending the constitution

There is an initiative to elect the president via popular vote instead of the electoral college

The one vote against James Monroe in the 1820 presidential election wasn't made to ensure that George Washington would remain the only American president unanimously chosen by the Electoral College; the elector just thought John Quincy Adams would make a better president.

Until 1800 the electoral college had to vote for 2 candidates. The candidate with the most votes would be President and the runner up would be VP.

Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the U.S. presidential election by a single electoral college vote (185-184)... while his Democrat challenger Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote by 3 percentage points (50.9%-47.9%)

The Garfield-Arthur ticket defeated the Democrat Party's Winfield Hancock-William English ticket by only just over 7,000 votes in the popular count, but by fifty-nine votes in the Electoral College, where it really mattered.

Due to the electoral college, in the 2004 presidential election, had 60000 voters in Ohio voted Democrat rather than republican, John Kerry would have won the election despite losing the popular vote by 3 million.

Although there have been recent calls to eliminate the Electoral College in the United States, it is very unlikely to happen since it would require a 2/3 majority by either the entire Congress or of each of the individual states" legislatures to do so.

In 1872, Presidential Candidate Horace Greeley died before the Electoral College officially balloted, resulting in his receiving electoral votes after his death.

After losing the popular vote but winning the highly-contested Electoral College, President Rutherford Hayes was nicknamed "His Fraudulency" his opponents. He served one term before rejecting the nomination of the Republican Party for a second term.

India's electoral college is based on the 1971 census with the intention to encourage family planning programs in the states by ensuring that states are not penalized for lowering their population growth.

This is our collection of basic interesting facts about Electoral College. The fact lists are intended for research in school, for college students or just to feed your brain with new realities. Possible use cases are in quizzes, differences, riddles, homework facts legend, cover facts, and many more. Whatever your case, learn the truth of the matter why is Electoral College so important!