teacher asks:

What is an electoral college?

my answer:

The electoral college is a process, not a place...

The founding fathers etablished it in the constitution as a compromise between election of the prsident by a vote in congress and election of the president by a popular vote of qualified citizens. The electoral college process consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for president and vice president, and the counting of the electoral votes by congress.

Under the 23rd Admendment of the constitution, the district of columbia is a located 3 electors and treated like a state for purposes of the electoral college. for the reason, in the following discussion, the word "

state

" also refers to the district of columbia. The electoral college consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the president. Your state's entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its congressional delegation: one for each member in the house of repersentatives plus two for your senators...

But I believe even the best-laid systems can be wrong .

teacher asks:

What Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bob Dole, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the AFL-CIO all, in thier time, agreed on?

My answer:

Abolishing the electoral college!

they're not alone; according to a Gallup poll in 2000, taken shortly after Al Gore- thanks to the quirks of the electoral college- won the popular vote but lost the presidency, over 60 percent of voters would perfer a direct election to the kind we have now. This year voters can expect another close election in which the popular vote winner could again lose the presidency. And yet, the electoral college still has its defenders. what gives?...