If you thought First Past the Post created poxy results in the New Zealand House of Representatives, you should see the distortions which ar created by the Electoral College system in the USA.
In the Electoral College system, the president is actually decided by who wins the most votes in the Electoral College. Each state has a number of votes in the Electoral College and casts all its votes for the party who won that state. Each state gets a different number of Electoral College votes with the bigger states getting more votes.
So, whichever candidate wins California gets 55 votes in the Electoral Collge. The candidate who wins Columbia gets 3 votes in the Electoral College. The only "split vote" states are Maine and Nebraska. Their Electoral College votes are cast proportionally. Colorado is considering changing to be a split vote state.
This why the swing states are so important - and why the big swing states are extremely important. Florida has 27 votes in the Electoral College so, in a tight race, whoever wins it is likely to win the Presidency.
Check out this article at the bbc for more details.
Posted by carla at November 3, 2004 04:03 PM