As many are, I’m captivated by this term’s US election. It’s one of the many subjects that catch my eye when browsing reddit and the like. Whilst attempting to not to be too ignorant I’ve been lightly researching the concepts that make up the electoral stage that make up votes in the US. One thing that seems quite key to the Presidential selection is the Electoral College, which is defined as:

[...] 538 popularly elected representatives who formally select the President and Vice President of the United States.^[1] In 2008, it will make this selection on December 15. The Electoral College is an example of an indirect election.

Rather than directly voting for the President and Vice President, United States citizens cast votes for electors. Electors are technically free to vote for anyone eligible to be President, but in practice pledge to vote for specific candidates^[2] and voters cast ballots for favored presidential and vice presidential candidates by voting for correspondingly pledged electors.^[3] Most states allow voters to choose between statewide slates of electors pledged to vote for the presidential and vice presidential tickets of various parties; the ticket that receives the most votes statewide ‘wins’ all of the votes cast by electors from that state. U.S. presidential campaigns concentrate on winning the popular vote in a combination of states that choose a majority of the electors, rather than campaigning to win the most votes nationally.

An indirect election is, for all intents and purposes, election by proxy. You vote for someone who’ll represent your vote when the Electoral College selects its candidate. There’s nothing that says “you vote for representative A, you’ll get candidate B”. It’s all down to trust, and you know what that means in today’s political climate…pretty much sweet FA.

So how does this work in practice? Is this the very reason John Kerry and Al Gore weren’t voted in? Am I missing something?