Title: AMS :: Feature Column from the AMS
Headings: The Process of Electing a President
The Process of Electing a President
Posted April 2008.
The Electoral College
Mathematical insights into elections and voting
Ballots
Decision methods
Axiomatic approaches to fairness
Manipulation of voting systems
Who studies fairness, voting and elections?
References:

Content: Whereas many people think in terms of tabulating paper ballots because often day-to-day votes are done with these, the issue of how to vote online, or using electronic/mechanical voting machines, raises many questions about the accuracy of vote counts. Mathematicians and computer scientists are looking into issues related to the security of voting and the accuracy of vote counts. In particular, suppose we have partial results from an election and the accuracy of vote for some specific districts of known size is available, can we determine if the outcome of the election might be affected by the results of these disputed votes? Noteworthy here is the fact that in 2000 the candidate who had the largest popular vote did not become president. Since ballots for president only allow a voter to vote for one candidate, it is not easy to know the consequences of having the election between only the two top vote-getters instead of the many candidates who typically appear on a presidential ballot. Furthermore, we can not be sure if the candidate a voter voted for is that voter's "favorite" candidate. For example, in the 2000 election it is possible that some voters for Gore or Bush would have preferred Nader but voted for the person they did because they felt that, given the way the votes were going to be counted (e.g. plurality voting), they did not want to "throw away" their vote and, hence, voted for someone other than their first choice. The Electoral College
The reason Gore did not win the election in 2000 is that the president is not elected on the basis of the popular vote but on the vote in the Electoral College. The essence (there are technical details) of the way that the Electoral College works is that each of the 50 states casts a block of votes which represents the total number of Senators (always 2) and the number of members that the state has in the House of Representatives. In the Electoral College the District of Columbia also casts 3 votes.