WORLD WIDE AFRICA THE VOICE OF THE PAN AFRICAN MOVEMENT

THE CONSTITUTION allots each state as many electorial votes as it has ssenators and representatves in Congress.  Thus no state has fewer thatn three electorial votes.  (The Distirct of Columbia also gets three even though it has no members of Congress.) There are 538 electorial votes; to win the Presidency, a candidate must receive a majority or 270.  In each state, each party runs a slate of electors pledged to that partys presidential and vice presidential candidates.  The names of these electors usually do not appear on the ballots.  the state whose candidate wins more popular votes than any othe is authorized to cast all the votes of that state in the electoral college.  

This results in a winner take all effect.  Since it is up to the state legislatures to decide how the electors are chosen,   they could devise systems that would produce a split in the states electoral votes.  Mane and Nebraska hve done this by allowing some or all electors to be chosen by congressnal district rather than at large.

If no candidate wins a majority , the House of Representatives chooses the president from among the three leading candidates, with each state casting one vote.  By House rule, each states vote is alloted to the candidate preferred by a majority of the states House delegation.  If there is a tie within a delegation, that staes vote is not counted.

The house has had to decide two presidential contests.  In 1800 Thomas Jefferson and Aron Burr tied in the electoral college because of a defect in the language of the Constitution--each state cast two electoral votes without indicating which was for president and which was for vice president.  (Burr was supposed to be vice president and , after much maneuverin , he was.)  The 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804 , corrected this problem.