for electing people to offices other than the presidency. It is also already widely used across the U.S. Octubre CCC/FlickrĪ common method of electing a president is plurality voting, used in Mexico, South Korea, the Philippines and other countries. Electoral College does not guarantee.Ĭhilean President Salvador Allende won office with less than 40% of the vote – and was deposed by a military coup. My own research has found better human rights protections in countries that elect presidents who are supported by a majority of voters – which is something U.S. could consider, if it chose to change how the president is elected.

The result is that different candidates can – and do – win the popular vote and the electoral vote.Īs a scholar of presidential democracies around the world, I’ve examined a range of options the U.S. This system gives voters in states with smaller populations more influence than voters in larger states – assuming everyone turns out to cast a ballot. In Maine and Nebraska, candidates earn two electoral votes for a statewide win, plus one more for each congressional district they win in. and 48 states, those electoral votes are assigned to the presidential candidate who wins that state’s popular vote. assigns each state a number of electoral votes based on how many representatives and senators are sent to Congress. Rather than totaling up how many people vote for each candidate nationwide and declaring a winner, the U.S. Thanks to the Electoral College, that has happened five times in the country’s history, including in 20. is the only democracy in the world where a presidential candidate can get the most popular votes and still lose the election.

What is the electoral college