Here’s a little factoid that never fails to mightily confuse most voters. As Americans, we actually DO NOT directly elect our presidents and vice presidents. I repeat, the U.S. president is not chosen through a one-person, one-vote system!

Simply put: this is not direct democracy!

When we head to the polls on election day to choose a presidential candidate, we’re not actually really voting for that person. Instead, we’re throwing our support behind a group of “electors” who belong to a strange institution called the electoral college. And it’s that group that actually casts the direct votes to decide who the next president and vice president will be.

Don’t believe me? Check out Article II of the U.S. Constitution. Says it right there. Honest.

Weird, right?

Here’s how it works:

First off, what is the Electoral College (and do they have a good football team)?

It’s more of an institution than a place. No dorms.  No frat boys. No teams. No crazy parties. Basically, none of the fun stuff.

Here’s what it is: During the presidential election every four years, the various political parties in each state (for instance: California’s Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, etc.) choose a group of “electors,” generally party activists who have pledged their electoral votes to the presidential candidate of that party should he/she win the popular vote in that state. Pretty much anyone who’s registered to vote is eligible to be an elector, with the exception of members of Congress and federal government employees).

Who better to explain our confusing electoral system than … the British!

When do the electors cast their official votes for president?

Oddly, it’s actually not until after election day. On the Monday following the second Wednesday of December (stay with me here!), each state’s electors meet in their respective state capitals and cast their votes — one for president and one for vice president. This event never really gets a whole lot of attention because everyone already knows that those electors are almost certainly going to vote for the candidate in their own party. The results are announced on January 6 and the president is sworn in two weeks later.

Technically, electors can change their minds, but that’s  only happened about five times in U.S. history (these electors are labeled “faithless”). Interestingly, most instances have been within the last 30 years, according to Time Magazine.

How many electors does each state get?

It’s based on the number of U.S. congressional representatives that each state has, plus its two senators. So, every state (and the District of Columbia) is guaranteed at least 3 electoral votes. A sparsely populated state like North Dakota – which has two senators but only one congressional representative – gets just three electoral votes. So, in North Dakota, each political party comes up with their own list of three electors to represent the state in the Electoral College (should the candidate from that party win the popular vote).

California, in comparison, is the most populous state, and gets 55 electoral votes (53 congressional reps plus two senators).

How does a candidate win electors?

The presidential election is decided state-by-state. And for almost every state, it’s a winner-take-all scenario. Which means that the candidate who receives the most popular (aka direct) votes in each state, gets all of that state’s electors. And the other candidates in the race – even if they lose the popular vote by just a couple of actual votes = get no electors from that state at all. Nada. Squat.

So, looking at California again, If Barack Obama were to win the state, he’d get all 55 Democratic electors and Mitt Romney wouldn’t get a single one of his 55 Republican electors.

And that’s why very populous states like California, New York, Texas, and Florida are political jackpots; they just have so many delicious electors for the taking.

The two exceptions to this rule are Maine and Nebraska. They use a proportional system, in which two electors are chosen by popular vote and the remainder of the electors are decided by the popular vote within each congressional district.

Why is 270 the magic number?

There are 538 electors nationwide, and to win the the presidency, a candidate needs 270 of them. So, if you win a state like California (even if you win it by a single measly popular vote), you’ve just gotten about 20 percent of the votes you need to be sitting pretty in the White House come January.

Conversely, presidential candidates generally don’t spend too much time on the campaign trail in  places like the Dakotas (no offense guys – we still love you). Although, you probably won’t find them spending that much time in California either – because it’s pretty safely in the Democratic category. It’s the big swing states (or battleground states) – places like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Virginia – that you’ll see the candidates spending most of their time as the election nears. Because it’s these states that are still up for grabs and chock full of  electors – they’re the one’s that will usually decide the election.

PBS NewsHour’s election map center and the site 270 To Win both provide good interactive maps that allow users to play around with the variables and simulate various outcome. They also show the state-by-state breakdowns in past elections.

This is all really confusing! Give a real example already.

OK. Let’s look back at the 2008 election. First off, in terms of electoral votes, Obama pretty much killed it – he ended up with more than twice as many as John McCain: 365 compared to 173. But the weird thing is, Obama actually won the election by less than 10 million popular votes. The reason being that he was able to just squeak by in the big critical swing states (namely Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida), which collectively got him a huge number of electoral votes.

What happened in Florida is a actually a great example of just how peculiar our electoral system can be:

The Sunshine State is the quintessential mother-lode swing state; always unpredictable and worth a big chunk of electoral votes. In 2008, Obama won it by a margin of less than three percent (he got about 51 percent to McCain’s 48 percent). We’re talking about a victory of less than 300,000 votes. But because of the winner-take-all rule, Obama still got all 27 of the state’s electoral votes (and McCain got none). So depending on how you look at it, you could technically argue that the votes cast by the more than 4 million Floridians who chose McCain didn’t really end up counting for much at all.

Can a candidate win the presidency without winning the popular vote?

Indeed! It’s actually happened four different times in America’s history: In 1876 and 1888, Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison, respectively, won the White House even though they lost the popular vote (but won the electoral vote). And then there was the strange 1824 election, in which Andrew Jackson won more popular votes and electoral votes, but still ended up losing the election to John Quincy Adams. Turns out that Jackson’s 15 electoral vote advantage wasn’t enough to secure a required majority, and the presidency was ultimately decided by a vote in the House of Representatives. Pretty wacky.

And finally, who could forgot the 2000 election, in which Al Gore won more popular votes than George W. Bush, but lost the election (guess who’s now a big proponent of getting rid of the Electoral College?).

Why did the Founding Fathers come up with such a zany system? 

Two main reasons:

a) They wanted to steer clear of the British parliamentary model, in which the chief executive (prime minister) is chosen by elected representatives of the majority party. The founders thought that it was more democratic to appoint electors from each state than to have a system in which the president was elected by Congress.

b) It came down to an issue of old-school logistics: Back in the day (like way, way back: I’m talking before phones, and trains and wheels – OK, fine, they had wheels), long distance communication and travel was a challenge. Voting for delegates at a local level was easier and less susceptible to tampering and corruption than was counting every last person’s vote throughout the whole country.

What are arguments for keeping the Electoral College?

• It forces candidates to pay at least some attention to less-populated states. It also guarantees some political recognition to rural areas, as opposed to politicians being entirely focused on on voter-rich urban centers.
• It gives a greater degree of power to minority groups by allowing the opportunity for a relatively small number of voters in each state to determine the outcome.
• It’s consistent with America’s representative system of government, and it’s just the way we’ve always done it; it’s in our Constitution dagnabbit, so leave it be!

And how about against?

• Under our current electoral system, not all votes are equal; voters in swing states and less populous states have disproportionate power. And that disenfranchises millions of voters whose votes are not as important. In a direct election, everyone’s vote would have the same weight regardless of geography.
• It gives candidates the negative incentive to focus their campaigns mostly in swing states while largely ignoring the millions of voters in populous states that tend to consistently favor one party (like California and Texas).
• It’s a super outdated system that creates the potential for a candidate to win the popular vote but still lose the election.

(Source: California Secretary of State, May 2012 data)

President Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the Voting Rights Act into law in 1965, called voting “the basic right, without which all others are meaningless.”

But in California – where nearly 24 million adults are eligible to vote – the number of people who actually take advantage of this right is surprisingly small.

Consider these California voting stats (approximated):

• 24 million: People who are eligible to vote
• 17 million: People registered to vote (about 72% of those who are eligible)
• 6 million: “Likely voters” (those who regularly vote)
• 5.3 million: The number of votes cast in the June 2012 primary election

A  Public Policy Institute of California survey also found that California’s “likely voters” are not  representative of the state’s racial and economic diversity. About 65 percent of them are white (even though whites make up only 44 percent of the state’s adult population) and only 17 percent Latino (who make up about one-third of the state’s population). Likely voters are also generally older, more educated, more affluent, and far more likely to own a home than the average Californian. And more than 80 percent were born in the U.S.

For more on how to register to vote and who is eligible, go here.

Not surprisingly, RCV has its discontents; some candidates stand to benefit more than others, and a variety of opponents have cried foul, calling the system too complex and fundamentally undemocratic. Last year RCV survived a court challenge following allegations that it violated voters’ rights.The biggest issue at play is that you no longer need to be the top vote-getter in the first round in order to win the election; instead you need the most combined first, second, and third choice votes. And that significantly changes the calculus. Factor in that there a grand total of 16 candidates ran for mayor this year, and voters found themselves wading through a pretty thick electoral swamp.

So, how’d this all begin? Well actually, San Franciscans voted on it (ah, the irony!). In 2002, residents approved Proposition A, effectively amending the city’s charter. RCV has been used in smaller scale elections in San Francisco since 2004, but never for such a high-stakes contest. Used to be -  you just voted for one candidate. If no one received more than 50 percent of the votes, there was a December runoff election, and whoever got the most votes got the prize.

From here on in, RCV will be used to elect all of the city’s major elected positions, including the Board of Supervisors. So, if RCV still baffles you,   here’s my best stab at explaining the rules of the game:

First off, a quick preview of what the new ballot looks like.  The basic format is fairly simple: Three side-by-side columns (first-choice, second-choice and third-choice). Each column includes the names of all 16 candidates.

Round 1: An Even Starting Line
From the pool of 16 candidates, you pick your first, second, and third choices. (Note: you don’t have to pick three; if you want, you can just pick your first-choice, or your first two choices, etc. It also doesn’t do you any good to repeatedly pick your first-choice three times – it’ll only be counted once.

Columbia City Blog/Flickr

If any candidate gets more than 50 percent (50% +1) of first-choice votes, that candidate is automatically elected. Game over. But, if no one receives that majority, we go to the second round.

So just for kicks (and because puppets are more fun than politicians), let’s pretend we’re observing a heated mayoral race on Sesame Street There are four candidates running, and a total of 24 voters casting ballots.

Cookie Monster (the clear frontrunner, of course, well loved for his oratorical gifts and promises of free pastries to the electorate) gets 10 first-place votes. Oscar the Grouch gets 8 first place votes (with strong support from the waste management industry and a large contingent of the generally disgruntled). Big Bird gets 4 first-place votes (from aviary supporters). And poor, impetuous Grover gets only 2 first-place votes (because no one really knows exactly what he is). No one got more than 12 votes, so there’s no clear majority. But we do have our first loser … so we move on to Round 2.

Round 2: The First Elimination
Grover, the candidate with the least amount of first-choice votes, is outta here! But (and here’s the part that seems to trip folks up the most), for the two voters who picked Grover as a first-choice, their second-choice votes still count. Here’s how:
One of the voters who chose Grover picked Oscar as a second choice. So that vote goes to Oscar (who now has a total of 9 votes). The other voter in Grover’s small fan club picked Cookie Monster as a second choice. So, that vote goes to Cookie Monster (who now has 11 votes).

At the end of Round 2, here’s the tally:
Cookie Monster: 11 votes
Oscar: 9 votes
Big Bird: 4 votes
Still no clear winner (because there still are three candidates standing), so onto Round 3 we go!

Round 3: The Deciding Moment
Three candidates left, and Big Bird’s got the least amount of first-choice votes (only 4), so that oversized avian is done! Now, we look at the second-choice votes of those four voters who picked Big Bird as their first-choice. Remarkably, as it turns out, all four of Big Bird’s second-choice votes were for Oscar! That means that Oscar picks up four more votes, giving him (or it?) a final tally of 13 votes to Cookie Monster’s 11 votes. And thus, that grumpy, trash-dwelling green dude is the new boss in town.

O.K., so in the San Francisco mayoral election, things might not be quite that simple (and all the candidates are probably going to have noses). But hopefully you’re beginning to get the idea of how a candidate can viably receive the most first-choice votes and still lose the election. Because there are 16 candidates in the real race, that same elimination process keeps going until one candidate emerges with the most votes.

One key to understanding the RCV instant runoff process is remembering that the number of elimination rounds is determined by the number of candidates running. So, in the case of San Francisco’s mayoral race: there are 16 candidates, thus, 15 elimination rounds to determine a winner. In the Sesame Street scenario, there are a total of 4 candidates, requiring three elimination rounds to determine the winner. Just think of it as last man/woman/puppet standing. Take a look:

Round 1: Four candidates on the ballot with a total of 24 votes cast.

C. Monster O. Grouch B. Bird Grover Total votes
10 votes 8 votes 4 votes 2 votes 24

Round 2: Three candidates standing; Grover is eliminated and his votes go to Cookie Monster and Oscar. Remember that all 24 votes still count, but some have just been transferred to other candidates.

C. Monster O. Grouch B. Bird Total votes
11 votes 9 votes 4 votes 24

Round 3: Two candidates left; Big Bird is eliminated and all four of his votes go to Oscar (because the people who voted for Big Bird as their first-choice picked Oscar as their second-choice.

C. Monster O. Grouch Total votes
11 votes 13 votes 24

With 13 votes to Cookie Monster’s 11, Oscar the Grouch is the winner!

Oakland’s 2010 Mayoral Election
Last year, Oakland used RCV to elect its mayor and witnessed a similar outcome: There were 10 candidates, and Don Perata, the clear frontrunner (who vastly outspent his opponents during the campaign), got 35% of the first-choice votes. That left Jean Quan in a distant second with only 24% of first-choice votes. But Quan – who anticipated this outcome and allied herself with other underdog candidates and their supporters – received far more second-choice votes than did Perata. And after all the elimination rounds, with second and third-choice votes factored in, Quan received 51% of the vote to Perata’s 49%.

The Critics
So is RCV a good thing? The jury’s still out. It really depends on who you ask. (Oakland’s Mayor Quan, I’m guessing would say yes; Don Perata … not so much. Oscar the Grouch though, is definitely a big fan.)
Like pretty much everything in politics, the system’s got its strong supporters and staunch enemies.

Some of the big arguments from supporters of RCV:

• It could save taxpayers millions by eliminating the need for local primaries and separate runoff elections.
• It boosts electoral competition because candidates only have to raise money for one election per cycle, not two or three.
• It gives underdog candidates a better chance and produces a winner that’s supported by a clear majority.
• It discourages mudslinging and negative campaigning; candidates are now more likely to ally with each.

Opponents say:

• It’s too confusing for voters and unnecessarily adds to the complexity of an already complicated ballot.
• There is lots of room for technical error as election computers tally results through the use of a complicated algorithm.
• It encourages less popular candidates to game the system by teaming up against the frontrunner. Is this is a fair or appropriate strategy? Depends who you ask.
• It’s discriminatory to less educated or knowledgeable segments of the voting public who haven’t received sufficient instruction on how the system works.

Need a Visual Aid?
KQED TV’s This Week got a rundown straight from the San Francisco Department of Elections. Watch the video below: