The Daily Campus

Issue date: 11/3/08 Section: Election Special

Only two states - Maine and Nebraska - don't abide by the "winner-take-all" law that exists in the other states. The other 48 states give all the electoral votes to the party that wins, whereas in Maine and Nebraska, the votes are split up according to the number of votes each candidate received, according to Ladewig. Approximately one-third of the states do not have consequences if the electors vote against the winner of their state, but the rest have punishments that vary by state. The only penalty in Connecticut, for example, is paying a fine, Ladewig said. However, according to the official U.S. Electoral College Web site, 99 percent of electors vote for the winner of the state's popular vote.

"Winner-takes-all" explains how George W. Bush won the 2000 presidential election over former Vice President Al Gore. By winning a few hundred more popular votes in Florida, Bush got all 27 of the state's electoral votes. This was the fourth time in history that a president did not win the popular vote, Ladewig said.

There are "battleground" or undecided states, which can mean the difference in the election. This year, Ohio, Florida, Missouri and North Carolina are still swing states.

According to Ladewig, the Founding Fathers imagined that the Electoral College's purpose was to act as a "levy system" to stop the wrong popular vote. He also explained that the small states were supposed to be given equal power, and that the House of Representatives was meant to grow exponentially, though it has remained at 435 members since 1910. This has been because of rural states worrying about greater power given to states with large cities that contained mostly new immigrants. If Congress had kept growing exponentially after 1920, then the number of electors would have increased by hundreds of members nationwide, and would allow smaller states a more equal influence.

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