Why no foreign-born American as president?

The District of Columbia

Why does the District of Columbia, which is not a state and has no voting representatives in Congress, get three electoral votes?
Because Congress and the requisite number of state legislatures decided in 1961 to amend the Constitution to give D.C. residents the right to vote in presidential elections, but not in congressional elections.

A constitutional amendment rather than a mere statute was needed to do this because Article II of the Constitution specifically refers to states choosing presidential electors.

A House report, in explaining this constitutional amendment, said D.C. residents "have all the obligations of citizenship, including the payment of Federal taxes, of local taxes, and service in our Armed Forces. They have fought and died in every U.S. war since the District was founded."

The amendment would remove the "anomaly of imposing all the obligations of citizenship without the most fundamental of its privileges."

Has the District of Columbia always cast the majority of its votes for the Democratic candidate for president?
Yes. No Republican has ever come close to winning in D.C. The best showing by a Republican was by Richard Nixon who got 22 percent of the vote in 1972.

Winning the popular vote, but losing the election

Is it possible for a candidate to win the nationwide popular vote and yet lose the electoral vote?
Yes, he can do so by amassing big vote margins in states in which his party is dominant, while losing other states narrowly.

It happened in 2000 when Al Gore won California with a margin of victory of nearly 1.3 million votes. Gore won New York with 1.7 million votes to spare.

But Gore lost New Hampshire by only 7,211 and lost the electoral vote, 271 to 266. He also lost Florida by 537, but many Democrats thought a recount would have shown him winning that state.

Could the popular vote be very high, with 80 percent of the people voting for one presidential candidate, and yet the Electoral College overrides that and chooses the opposing candidate as president?
No. A candidate who wins 80 percent of the popular vote would have won many states by wide margins. Thus he or she would get all the electoral votes from most states, well more than enough electoral votes to give him or her more than the 270 needed.

The biggest percentage winner of the nationwide popular vote in any election since 1900 was Democrat Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Johnson won 61 percent of the votes cast. This gave him enough votes to win 45 out of 50 states, and 486 electoral votes.

The job of the electors

Once they are chosen, what do each state’s electors do?
On Dec. 15, in each state’s capitol, the state’s electors will meet to cast separate ballots for president and for vice president.

Can an elector pledged to vote for a candidate cast his or her vote for someone else?Yes. But this rarely happens.

Since the first election in 1789, ten electors have decided to vote for a presidential candidate other than the one to whom they were pledged.

Election A to Z questions What questions do you have about how America elects its president? Click here to e-mail your questions to Tom Curry and we’ll answer the best of them each week.

In 1948, for example, Tennessee elector Preston Parks was pledged to the Democratic candidate, Harry Truman, but instead cast his vote for States’ Rights presidential candidate Strom Thurmond. It didn’t affect the outcome of the election, as Truman won with 303 electoral votes.

Can an elector be punished if he does not vote for the candidate to whom he or she is pledged?
In some cases he or she could be: 25 states and the District of Columbia have laws binding electors.

In some states the penalty for electors who do not vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged is severe: in North Carolina for example, an elector who breaks his or her pledge can be fined $10,000.

Who counts the electoral votes to determine who in fact won the presidency?
Congress will meet in joint session on Jan. 6, 2009 to count the votes of the electors.

If at least one member of the House and one member of the Senate object to any electoral votes from a state, then the House and Senate each go into separate sessions to debate and vote on the contested electoral votes. Both the House and the Senate must vote to reject the challenged electoral votes in order for them to be rejected.

Can there be a bipartisan White House in the sense that a Democrat and a Republican both run for the presidency and whoever gets the majority of electoral votes wins the presidency and the other person becomes the vice president?
In theory, there could be such an outcome.

The current system which is set forth in the 12th Amendment to the Constitution would have allowed for electors to choose, for example in the 2000 election, Al Gore for president and George W. Bush for vice president.

But the two major political parties choose tickets of president and vice presidential candidates and the electors (who are loyal party members) almost always do what the party expects and vote for the entire ticket.

If there’s no electoral vote majority

What happens if the electoral vote ends up in a 269-269  tie, or in a multi-candidate field, if no candidate gets 270 electoral votes?
The Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution says that if no candidate gets a majority of the electors then the House of Representatives shall choose a president from among the top three vote-getters.

What procedure would the House use to go about choosing a president in this situation? In these circumstances, each state’s delegation in the House has one vote. So, for example, California’s 53 members of the House would caucus and vote as a bloc. Since there are more Democratic House members from California than Republican members, California’s one vote would go to the Democratic presidential candidate.

How many times has the House of Representatives chosen a president?
Twice, in 1801, when it chose Thomas Jefferson, and 1825, when it chose John Quincy Adams.

The 1968 election came close to being thrown into the House when Nixon received 301 electoral votes, Humphrey 191 and Wallace 46.

Had there been a shift of three percent of the vote in Illinois and four percent in Tennessee, Nixon would have lost both those states and would have wound up with 264 electoral votes, six short of the number required.

What would happen if a state, due to litigation and ballot disputes, can’t finish its vote count and therefore can’t choose its electors by the date on which electors are supposed to meet?
It is likely that the legislature of that state would appoint a slate of electors, rather than allowing the state to lose the opportunity to have some voice in the election.

MORE FROM

Section Front

Obama campaign head gets big book deal Officials turn down Franken request Joe the Plumber to become war correspondent Franken lead at 49 with absentees left to count Minn. Senate winner won't be known in 2008 First Read: 'Twas the seventh week of recount... Franken opens first lead in Minn. Senate race Mom of Palin daughter's boyfriend arrested Minn. court weighs rejected absentee ballots Minnesota panel reviews disputed ballots Section Front   Add headlines to your news reader: