Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Elector \E*lect"or\, a. [Cf. F. ['e]lectoral.] Pertaining to an election or to electors.
In favor of the electoral and other princes.
--Burke.
Electoral college, the body of princes formerly entitled to elect the Emperor of Germany; also, a name sometimes given, in the United States, to the body of electors chosen by the people to elect the President and Vice President.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context politics English) A body of electors empowered to elect someone to a particular office. 2 (alternative case form of Electoral College English).
WordNet
n. the body of electors who formally elect the United States president and vice-president
Wikipedia
An electoral college is a set of electors who are selected to elect a candidate to a particular office. Often these represent different organizations, political parties, or entities, with each organization, political party or entity represented by a particular number of electors or with votes weighted in a particular way. Many times, though, the electors are simply important people whose wisdom would ideally provide a better choice than a larger body. The system can ignore the wishes of a general membership.
The President of Pakistan is chosen by an electoral college, in Pakistan. According to Article 41(3) of the Constitution of Pakistan, this electoral college consists of the Senate, the National Assembly of Pakistan, and the Provincial Assemblies of the four provinces. Members of the National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies are directly elected by the people in competitive multi-party elections. Members of the Senate are indirectly elected by the provincial assemblies.
An electoral college is a set of electors who choose among candidates for a particular office.
Electoral College or electoral college may also refer to:
- Electoral College (United States), presidential electors
- Electoral College (Confederate States), presidential electors in the former CSA (1861)
- Electoral College (Burma)
- Electoral College (India), presidential electors
- Electoral College (Pakistan), presidential electors
- Dutch-speaking electoral college, European Parliament constituency in Belgium
- French-speaking electoral college, European Parliament constituency in Belgium
- German-speaking electoral college, European Parliament constituency in Belgium
- Electoral College for a Bishop in some provinces of the Anglican Communion
- Historically, the college of prince-electors who chose the new Holy Roman Emperor
The President of India and Vice President of India are indirectly elected by means of an electoral college consisting the elected members of the Parliament of India and the Legislative assemblies of the States and the Union Territories of Delhi and Puducherry. The votes are based on the population in 1971 rather than the current population, as a result of the 42nd Amendment, and extended by the 84th Amendment, with the intention to encourage family planning programs in the states by ensuring that states are not penalized for lowering their population growth.
The United States Electoral College is the institution that elects the President and Vice President of the United States every four years. Citizens of the United States do not directly elect the president or the vice president; instead they elect representatives called "electors", who usually pledge to vote for particular presidential and vice presidential candidates.
Electors are apportioned to each of the 50 states as well as to the District of Columbia (also known as Washington, D.C.). The number of electors in each state is equal to the number of members of Congress to which the state is entitled, while the Twenty-third Amendment grants the District of Columbia the same number of electors as the least populous state, currently three. Therefore, there are currently 538 electors, corresponding to the 435 Representatives and 100 Senators, plus the three additional electors from the District of Columbia. The Constitution bars any federal official, elected or appointed, from being an elector.
Except for the electors in Maine and Nebraska, electors are elected on a "winner-take-all" basis. That is, all electors pledged to the presidential candidate who wins the most votes in a state become electors for that state. Maine and Nebraska use the "congressional district method", selecting one elector within each congressional district by popular vote and selecting the remaining two electors by a statewide popular vote. Although no elector is required by federal law to honor a pledge, there have been very few occasions when an elector voted contrary to a pledge. The Twelfth Amendment, in specifying how a president and vice president are elected, requires each elector to cast one vote for president and another vote for vice president.
The candidate who receives an absolute majority of electoral votes (currently 270) for the office of president or of vice president is elected to that office. The Twelfth Amendment provides for what happens if the Electoral College fails to elect a president or vice president. If no candidate receives a majority for president, then the House of Representatives will select the president, with each state delegation (instead of each representative) having only one vote. If no candidate receives a majority for vice president, then the Senate will select the vice president, with each senator having one vote. On four occasions, most recently in 2000, the Electoral College system has resulted in the election of a candidate who did not receive the most popular votes in the election.
The Electoral College of the Confederate States was the institution that elected the President ( Jefferson Davis), and Vice President ( Alexander H. Stephens), of the Confederate States for a six-year term.
The President and Vice President were not elected directly by the voters. Instead, they were elected by electors who were chosen by popular vote on a state-by-state basis. This system was established by the Confederate States Constitution, in emulation of the United States Constitution. Like the U.S. Constitution, the Confederate Constitution provided that each state would have a number of electors "equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress" (Article II, Section 1).
Only one election was ever held, in 1861. In that election, the Electoral College consisted of 109 electors. The electors (chosen in the November elections) met in their respective states to cast their votes on December 4, 1861 (Confederate law mandated that electors meet on the first Wednesday in December).
Usage examples of "electoral college".
Nixon's response to losing the electoral college while winning the popular vote was to concede the election.
The electoral college establishes a set of rules and those rules make Bush the winner.
Amid unusually high voter turnout, Reagan was re-elected in the largest electoral college total ever.
In February, when the outcome of the election became official, it had been Adams's role, as president of the Senate, to open and read the final votes in the electoral college.
The importance of this Hard Left-dominated union vote will become plain when I describe the electoral college that chooses the new Party leader.
When we get to electoral college vote, though, things start picking up.
In the electoral college Adams was elected president with seventy-one votes.
The United States of Jupiter, almost alone among contemporary republics, retains what is termed the Electoral College.