William_T._Bianco,_David_T._Canon]_American_Polit

308 Chapter 9 | Elections

If no candidate receives a majority of the electoral college votes, the members of

the House of Representatives choose the winner. They follow a procedure in which

the members from each state decide which candidate to support and then cast one

collective vote per state, with the winner needing a majority of these state-level votes

to win. This procedure has not been used since 1824, although it might be required if a

third-party candidate wins a significant number of electoral votes or if a state’s electors

refuse to cast their votes.^14

A presidential candidate can win the electoral college vote, and thus the election,

without receiving a majority of the votes cast by citizens. One way this can happen is if a

third-party candidate for president receives a substantial number of votes. Bill Clinton,

for example, won a substantial electoral college majority in 1992 while receiving only

43 percent of the popular vote. This was because Ross Perot, running as a third-party

candidate, received almost 19 percent of the national popular vote but not enough

support in any one state to win electoral votes. Even in a race where no third-party

candidate wins a significant percentage of the vote, the electoral college magnifies the

winning candidate’s vote percentage. Yet because of the way popular votes translate

into electoral votes, even when there are only two candidates, one candidate can receive

a majority of the electoral votes even though another candidate wins more popular

votes (see Figure 9.1). As this figure shows, this outcome occurred in 2016 and 2000.

Other presidents who won the electoral college vote but lost the popular vote were John

Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and Benjamin Harrison in 1888.

FIGURE

9.1

Sources: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/historical.html (accessed 5/11/18).

0

Electoral vote

Popular vote

20

40

60

80%

10

30

50

70

Trump

(Rep.)

Bush

(Rep.)

Kerry

(Dem.)

McCain

(Rep.)

Romney

(Rep.)

Obama

(Dem.)

Clinton

(Dem.)

Obama

(Dem.)

Bush

(Rep.)

Gore

(Dem.)

2000 2004 2008 2012 2016

Popular Vote versus Electoral Vote Percentages,

2000–2016

Political scientists argue that the electoral college system tends to magnify the winning candidate’s margin of victory. Do the data

presented here support this view?

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