Electoral College Set to Vote on President Obama’s Reelection
Electoral College Set to Vote on President Obama’s Reelection
No one is expecting anything but a routine process Monday for Obama, who decisively won the popular vote last month, earning 332 pledged electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s 206.
There have been some electoral defectors in the past, but they’ve been rare.
“Those instances are very isolated,” said Miriam Vincent, an attorney for the Office of the Federal Register, which records and archives the electoral votes. “That’s not to say it won’t happen this year, but it’s unlikely, based on history.”
There were those who predicted a tighter finish on Nov. 6, and some news media speculated on the possibility of some version of election year 2000, the last time the electoral college took center stage. President George W. Bush lost the popular vote but won the electoral college after a historic — and controversial — Supreme Court decision.
The Constitution provides little in the way of mandating how the electoral college should work. It simply determines that each state has one elector for each of its senators and representatives, meaning no state has fewer than three votes.