How does it work in the US, you add up the sum of all electors won by each candidate on all states directly or you add state by state and once a candidate wins a state, ALL electors for that state belongs to the state winning candidate?

TIA!

Exactly except in Maine, Nebraska, Puerto Rico, and DC.

which one?

How does it work in those exception?

Thanx!

Kinda still on topic here...

We have the popular vote, and the electoral vote right? What happens if say, sKerry wins the popular, but W wins the electoral? Does one outrank the other? Is there a trump card somewhere? Or, what if the reverse was true? How does all of that work?

www.electoral-vote.com/info/electoral-college.html

Quoted: Kinda still on topic here... We have the popular vote, and the electoral vote right? What happens if say, sKerry wins the popular, but W wins the electoral? Does one outrank the other? Is there a trump card somewhere? Or, what if the reverse was true? How does all of that work?

Electoral vote is all it counts.

Quoted: Exactly except in Maine, Nebraska, Puerto Rico, and DC.

And probably here in CO.

Quoted: Quoted: Kinda still on topic here... We have the popular vote, and the electoral vote right? What happens if say, sKerry wins the popular, but W wins the electoral? Does one outrank the other? Is there a trump card somewhere? Or, what if the reverse was true? How does all of that work? Electoral vote is all it counts.

If the electoral vote is all that counts, wtf am I gonna go vote for? They say "make sure you vote, your vote counts" I call BS on that one. Someone explain to me why I'm wrong here.

The electoral votes for a state are awarded to the candidate who wins that state's popular vote. There are two exceptions to this: Maine and Kansas, where the EVs are awarded by congressional district, with two at large EVs in each state as well. DC electors are awarded to the popular vote winner in the District.

The Electoral vote is the only vote that counts. These electoral votes are tallied on the date set forth by Congress, and are certifed by Congress prior to 20 January. Winner of the popular vote at the national level has NO bearing on who gets to be President.

There is NO constitutional requirement that the Electors are actually bound by law to vote for the candidate who won their state. There have been 10 so-called "Faithless Electors" in U.S. history.

Quoted: Quoted: Kinda still on topic here... We have the popular vote, and the electoral vote right? What happens if say, sKerry wins the popular, but W wins the electoral? Does one outrank the other? Is there a trump card somewhere? Or, what if the reverse was true? How does all of that work? Electoral vote is all it counts.

Actually the 2000 elections should have told you that.
Gore won in the popular election, but lost because of the electoral college system. Worth noting though he is NOT the first candidate to suffer this fate. It has happened before, it will probably happen again.
It was a big contention at the time, to get rid of the electoral college, but that dribble ended pretty quick.
I suspect we'll see it resurface if the same thing happens again.

Quoted: The electoral votes for a state are awarded to the candidate who wins that state's popular vote. There are two exceptions to this: Maine and Kansas, where the EVs are awarded by congressional district, with two at large EVs in each state as well. DC electors are awarded to the popular vote winner in the District. The Electoral vote is the only vote that counts. These electoral votes are tallied on the date set forth by Congress, and are certifed by Congress prior to 20 January. Winner of the popular vote at the national level has NO bearing on who gets to be President. There is NO constitutional requirement that the Electors are actually bound by law to vote for the candidate who won their state. There have been 10 so-called "Faithless Electors" in U.S. history.

Let's see if I've got this. Me and my state vote for Bush. Our electors take a look at that, and if they're the right kinda people, they vote for Bush too? Or, could they say well, fuck that we want sKerry anyways, so throw their votes in his direction, regardless of what we voted for?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Kinda still on topic here... We have the popular vote, and the electoral vote right? What happens if say, sKerry wins the popular, but W wins the electoral? Does one outrank the other? Is there a trump card somewhere? Or, what if the reverse was true? How does all of that work? Electoral vote is all it counts. If the electoral vote is all that counts, wtf am I gonna go vote for? They say "make sure you vote, your vote counts" I call BS on that one. Someone explain to me why I'm wrong here.

Get out and vote!  If everyone thought like you, your candidate would not win.  Besides, there are other elections on your ballot thatyou should be concerned with.  In the end, every vote is counted.

Quoted: Quoted: The electoral votes for a state are awarded to the candidate who wins that state's popular vote. There are two exceptions to this: Maine and Kansas, where the EVs are awarded by congressional district, with two at large EVs in each state as well. DC electors are awarded to the popular vote winner in the District. The Electoral vote is the only vote that counts. These electoral votes are tallied on the date set forth by Congress, and are certifed by Congress prior to 20 January. Winner of the popular vote at the national level has NO bearing on who gets to be President. There is NO constitutional requirement that the Electors are actually bound by law to vote for the candidate who won their state. There have been 10 so-called "Faithless Electors" in U.S. history. Yes. Let's see if I've got this. Me and my state vote for Bush. Our electors take a look at that, and if they're the right kinda people, they vote for Bush too? Or, could they say well, fuck that we want sKerry anyways, so throw their votes in his direction, regardless of what we voted for?

Quoted: Quoted: The electoral votes for a state are awarded to the candidate who wins that state's popular vote. There are two exceptions to this: Maine and Kansas, where the EVs are awarded by congressional district, with two at large EVs in each state as well. DC electors are awarded to the popular vote winner in the District. The Electoral vote is the only vote that counts. These electoral votes are tallied on the date set forth by Congress, and are certifed by Congress prior to 20 January. Winner of the popular vote at the national level has NO bearing on who gets to be President. There is NO constitutional requirement that the Electors are actually bound by law to vote for the candidate who won their state. There have been 10 so-called "Faithless Electors" in U.S. history. Let's see if I've got this. Me and my state vote for Bush. Our electors take a look at that, and if they're the right kinda people, they vote for Bush too? Or, could they say well, fuck that we want sKerry anyways, so throw their votes in his direction, regardless of what we voted for?

Technically, yes you are correct. The electors could vote against you. Generally speaking though, they do not. As noted in a previous post there have been a few in our history.

Quoted: Quoted: Kinda still on topic here... We have the popular vote, and the electoral vote right? What happens if say, sKerry wins the popular, but W wins the electoral? Does one outrank the other? Is there a trump card somewhere? Or, what if the reverse was true? How does all of that work? Electoral vote is all it counts.

The TV networks are causing confusion among the proletariat/sheeple because they have a running total counter of popular votes for each Dem/Repub presidential candidate. The history poor proletariat/sheeple don't understand the function of how the president is elected in the USA as defined by the USA Constitution. To me the electorial college is a brillant stroke of genius by the founding fathers to confuse the $hit out of the uninformed.

Quoted: Actually the 2000 elections should have told you that. Gore won in the popular election, but lost because of the electoral college system. Worth noting though he is NOT the first candidate to suffer this fate. It has happened before, it will probably happen again. It was a big contention at the time, to get rid of the electoral college, but that dribble ended pretty quick. I suspect we'll see it resurface if the same thing happens again.

Okay, so based on this, since the electoral votes are the only ones that count, why was he whining about recounting the popular vote, blah blah. Was he hoping to get around the system somehow? Would a recount of the popular force a revote of the electors in FL? Was he just trying to save a sinking ship there?

Quoted: Quoted: Actually the 2000 elections should have told you that. Gore won in the popular election, but lost because of the electoral college system. Worth noting though he is NOT the first candidate to suffer this fate. It has happened before, it will probably happen again. It was a big contention at the time, to get rid of the electoral college, but that dribble ended pretty quick. I suspect we'll see it resurface if the same thing happens again. Okay, so based on this, since the electoral votes are the only ones that count, why was he whining about recounting the popular vote, blah blah. Was he hoping to get around the system somehow? Would a recount of the popular force a revote of the electors in FL? Was he just trying to save a sinking ship there?

Because if the recall showed that he won the popular vote in FL, he would have gotten all the electors from the state.

Quoted: Quoted: Actually the 2000 elections should have told you that. Gore won in the popular election, but lost because of the electoral college system. Worth noting though he is NOT the first candidate to suffer this fate. It has happened before, it will probably happen again. It was a big contention at the time, to get rid of the electoral college, but that dribble ended pretty quick. I suspect we'll see it resurface if the same thing happens again. Okay, so based on this, since the electoral votes are the only ones that count, why was he whining about recounting the popular vote, blah blah. Was he hoping to get around the system somehow? Would a recount of the popular force a revote of the electors in FL? Was he just trying to save a sinking ship there?

Al Gore was trying to recount the votes in FL in order to garner the FL electorial votes. IF Gore had succeeded, it would be President Gore today, rather than President Bush. But in the AAR, Gore would have lost. Even today, many of Dems/socialist regard Bush as stealing the office of the president.

Quoted: Quoted: Actually the 2000 elections should have told you that. Gore won in the popular election, but lost because of the electoral college system. Worth noting though he is NOT the first candidate to suffer this fate. It has happened before, it will probably happen again. It was a big contention at the time, to get rid of the electoral college, but that dribble ended pretty quick. I suspect we'll see it resurface if the same thing happens again. Okay, so based on this, since the electoral votes are the only ones that count, why was he whining about recounting the popular vote, blah blah. Was he hoping to get around the system somehow? Would a recount of the popular force a revote of the electors in FL? Was he just trying to save a sinking ship there?

He was having them recount the vote in Florida only . . . so that Florida's EV would be switched to him. He lost every recount, but he seemed inclined to continue having recounts until one favored him . . .

I think that Team Gore also tried to get the Florida electors to split their vote to match the popular vote in Florida. Basically, doing whatever it took to win.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Actually the 2000 elections should have told you that. Gore won in the popular election, but lost because of the electoral college system. Worth noting though he is NOT the first candidate to suffer this fate. It has happened before, it will probably happen again. It was a big contention at the time, to get rid of the electoral college, but that dribble ended pretty quick. I suspect we'll see it resurface if the same thing happens again. Okay, so based on this, since the electoral votes are the only ones that count, why was he whining about recounting the popular vote, blah blah. Was he hoping to get around the system somehow? Would a recount of the popular force a revote of the electors in FL? Was he just trying to save a sinking ship there? Because if the recall showed that he won the popular vote in FL, he would have gotten all the electors from the state.

Exactly.
If he had won the poular vote in FL then he would have gained 25 electoral votes in the electoral college. (assuming that the electors vote the way they should)

Quoted: How does it work in the US, you add up the sum of all electors won by each candidate on all states directly or you add state by state and once a candidate wins a state, ALL electors for that state belongs to the state winning candidate? TIA!

Here's how it works:

In order to make sure the President represents the NATION, not individual population centers (Our government is set up so that each elected body represents a different entity: The House of Representatives represents the PEOPLE, the Senate represents the STATES, and the Presidency represents the NATION), the Founders designed a system that forces Presidential candidates to win a broad base of support.

National Popular Vote, at least here, is just a statistic. If Kerry gets a blowout win in enough 'solid liberal' states, and barely looses in the rest, he may well win the popular vote, but he will lose the election.

The Electoral system, in general, means that the winner of each state's popular vote is assigned a number of votes based on how many representatives that state has in Congress (For example, every state has exactly 2 Senators and at least 1 Representative, so the MINIMUM number of votes a state may have is 3.) Since the number of Representatives a state has is proportional to population, big states have more Electoral Votes than small ones, but if you don't win enough small states you can still lose the election. This is why Gore wanted a recount in the state of Florida, since if it had shown that he won the STATEWIDE popular vote, he would be entitled to 25 more Electoral Votes. As it was, Gore lost the recount, and sued to try and force re-re-re-counting, hoping to eventually 'discover' that he had won... He lost that case, and Bush became the legitimate President when the Electoal College voted to make him such....

In Wisconsin, we have 2 Senators and 8 Representatives, so we get 10 votes in the College. California has the largest population of any state, and thus they have 54 Electoral Votes.

Theoretically, the College could refuse to elect someone President, but it has never happened - they have allways voted as they were supposed to vote. Also theoretically, if the Pres & Vice Pres who won the Electoral College became unable to serve (say, because they were killed by Al Queda), the Electoral College could elect someone else in their place. This has also never happened...

2000 illustrates the need for the College perfectly: Although Gore won the popular vote by a few percent, his support was distributed in a few very small & concentrated areas. Bush's support was by far more widespread accross the nation, and thus he got more electoral votes. So while Gore was the choice of the big cities, Bush better represented the nation as a whole, and thus Bush won.

Quoted: 2000 illustrates the need for the College perfectly: Although Gore won the popular vote by a few percent, his support was distributed in a few very small & concentrated areas. Bush's support was by far more widespread accross the nation, and thus he got more electoral votes. So while Gore was the choice of the big cities, Bush better represented the nation as a whole, and thus Bush won.

[demoncrap rant]  No, no, no! Bush STOLE the election. He hired people to misplace democratic votes in Florida. He personally went down there and started throwing out democratic votes. He personally went down there and forced democratic voters to go home and not vote. He's a Fascist! He secretly payed the Supreme Court to stop the recounts because he knew Gore would win! He told his brother to get out there and make sure he won! [/end demoncrap rant]

Sorry, couldn't resist because I STILL hear this kind of BS from the dimwits.

Quoted: Theoretically, the College could refuse to elect someone President, but it has never happened - they have allways voted as they were supposed to vote. Also theoretically, if the Pres & Vice Pres who won the Electoral College became unable to serve (say, because they were killed by Al Queda), the Electoral College could elect someone else in their place. This has also never happened...

A minor correction: If the elected President is unable to take office (whether due to death or some other reason), the EC does not get to pick someone else. The procedures laid out in the XII and XX Amendments would be in effect in this case.

A couple clarifications:

29 of the states (and D.C.) have faithless elector laws which bind an elector to vote in accordance with the popular vote or risk some sort of punishment (fine).  These laws have never been challenged, but stand a pretty good chance of being overturned if such a challenege arises.

2 states (Main and Nebraska), and potentially Colorado in 7 days, have proportional representation (i.e. win 66% of the state, get 2/3 of the electoral college votes).

There have been FOUR minority presidents in the U.S.  The elections happened in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000.  A minority president is a president who loses the popular vote but wins the electoral college vote.  There is talk that Bush could win the popular vote and lose the electoral college vote in a reverse of the 2000 election.

shooter

Quoted: A couple clarifications: 29 of the states (and D.C.) have faithless elector laws which bind an elector to vote in accordance with the popular vote or risk some sort of punishment (fine).  These laws have never been challenged, but stand a pretty good chance of being overturned if such a challenege arises. 2 states (Main and Nebraska), and potentially Colorado in 7 days, have proportional representation (i.e. win 66% of the state, get 2/3 of the electoral college votes). There have been FOUR minority presidents in the U.S.  The elections happened in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000.  A minority president is a president who loses the popular vote but wins the electoral college vote.  There is talk that Bush could win the popular vote and lose the electoral college vote in a reverse of the 2000 election. shooter

Clarification of your clarifications: In both Nebraska and Maine the EC votes are not awarded proportional to the popular vote in the state. The EC votes are awarded by congressional district and by the state as a whole. That is, if the candidate wins the popular vote in that Congressional district, he gets the district EC vote. Whoever wins the overall state popular vote gets the two at-large EC votes.

While there may be faithless elector laws on the books in several states, they would only apply after-the-fact, and could in no way change the outcome of how the Elector had already voted in the EC.

In addition, the electoral college serves is what makes us not a single democratic nation, but a nation of united states.  We elect our president based on a vote of the states, not a vote of the people.

The sheeple were out that day in civics, or they never took it.

Quoted: In addition, the electoral college serves is what makes us not a single democratic nation, but a nation of united states.  We elect our president based on a vote of the states, not a vote of the people. The sheeple were out that day in civics, or they never took it.

It was never taught. Just look at the (supposed) ignorance in Zack's questions.
Obviously parroting or seeding the concept that the USA is a Direct Democracy - Socialist's Dream - Mob Rule.

Quoted: Quoted: Theoretically, the College could refuse to elect someone President, but it has never happened - they have allways voted as they were supposed to vote. Also theoretically, if the Pres & Vice Pres who won the Electoral College became unable to serve (say, because they were killed by Al Queda), the Electoral College could elect someone else in their place. This has also never happened... A minor correction: If the elected President is unable to take office (whether due to death or some other reason), the EC does not get to pick someone else. The procedures laid out in the XII and XX Amendments would be in effect in this case.

By the law, there is nothing to stop them from picking someone else. He's not the elected President untill THEY elect him...

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Kinda still on topic here... We have the popular vote, and the electoral vote right? What happens if say, sKerry wins the popular, but W wins the electoral? Does one outrank the other? Is there a trump card somewhere? Or, what if the reverse was true? How does all of that work? Electoral vote is all it counts. If the electoral vote is all that counts, wtf am I gonna go vote for? They say "make sure you vote, your vote counts" I call BS on that one. Someone explain to me why I'm wrong here.

You're absolutely right.  But if everyone understood what you now know, no one would vote, and you'd be wrong.  

Most state legislatures have set up the laws such that the winner of the popular vote in that state are awarded all the state's electors, so your vote counts in selecting the electors.

The Colorado proposal for splitting the states's electoral votes may be unconsitutional. The constitution says the legislature sets up the criteria for awarding electors, and a popular initiative isn't the legislature.

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress

A Quick Note
You are voting for the electors.  I.E. You are voting for someone who will vote for Bush/Cheney or for someone who will vote for sKerry/Dewards.  Meaning there are Multiple sets of electors not just one set who "looks at" the popular vote.  This greatly reduces the chance of a "faithless" elector.

Another fun fact.  There is no constitutional requirement for a presidential (popular) Election.
"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress" Article 2 Sec. I of the United States Constitution

For you electoral college non-believers, read this and then discuss.  

www.avagara.com/e_c/reference/00012001.htm

HOW THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE WORKS

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Theoretically, the College could refuse to elect someone President, but it has never happened - they have allways voted as they were supposed to vote. Also theoretically, if the Pres & Vice Pres who won the Electoral College became unable to serve (say, because they were killed by Al Queda), the Electoral College could elect someone else in their place. This has also never happened... A minor correction: If the elected President is unable to take office (whether due to death or some other reason), the EC does not get to pick someone else. The procedures laid out in the XII and XX Amendments would be in effect in this case. By the law, there is nothing to stop them from picking someone else. He's not the elected President untill THEY elect him...

Geez, read the frickin' Constitution. I even laid out the appropriate amendments for you to check.