Question: Why don't the candidates get a proportion of the electoral vote?
Answer: In other words, why don't the candidates get votes equivalent to the amount of the popular vote they won for each state? It is up to the state legislatures to decide how electors are chosen. However, only Maine and Nebraska have chosen to split their electoral vote. All other states use what is known as the 'winner-take-all' system whereby the electors of the candidate who gains a plurality of the popular vote casts all the votes for that state.
Learn more about the electoral college:
- What is the electoral college?
- Why did the Founding Fathers create electors?
- How many total electoral votes are there?
- How many electoral votes does a candidate need to win?
- Which states have the most electoral votes?
- How many electors does each state have?
- What about Washington, D.C. and the electoral vote?
- What happens if there is a tie in the electoral college?
- Who are the electors?
- What procedure is followed for the electors to vote?
- Has someone received a plurality of the vote yet lost in the electoral college?
- Has a tie ever occurred in the electoral college? When?
- If the state's winner chooses electors, won't the person with the most votes win?
- Why have elections when the state's winner will receive all the electoral votes?
- When do we finally have an official winner?
