Electoral College

Gregory Pecoraro, Westminster councilman, assistant secretary to the state Department of Transportation, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" contestant, husband and father has a new title to add to his sizable list: elector to the United States' 54th Electoral College. Pecoraro is one of 10 Maryland Democrats who will cast their votes for Vice President Al Gore on Dec. 18. He says it's possible he is the first Carroll County resident to be an elector since John Brooke Boyle in 1860, the last year in which the state kept the electors list by county.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- When President Bush decided to fly int Alabama and Louisiana this weekend, the dirty little secret was out: The Republicans are in real and immediate danger of losing the fabled "Electoral College lock" they have enjoyed in winning five of the past six presidential elections.Without the South overwhelmingly Republican, there is no lock at all. And with the election nine days away, the evidence is accumulating that Democrat Bill Clinton may win as many as seven or possibly eight of the 13 states in the region that will cast 163 electoral votes Nov. 3.The dimensions of the Republican problem are defined by political history.

A number of news reports have suggested the possibility of the presidential election ending in a draw - both candidates garnering 269 electors. You need 270 to win. A long shot? Maybe. It happened in 1800, when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr each ended up with the same number of electors, proving that even the Framers weren't immune to the law of unintended consequences. Their solution to such an event produced one of their most formidable compromises: the "contingent" election, where the failure of any candidate to achieve a majority of electors would result in a vote by the House of Representatives, with each state casting one vote.

Yesterday in Annapolis, 10 electors representing Maryland in the Electoral College cast their ballots for Barack Obama. The Electoral College is an institution enshrined in the Constitution. It also is an archaic threat to our democracy because the system disenfranchises many voters and sometimes results in the candidate who wins the most votes losing the presidency. Just ask Al Gore; he won the popular vote but lost the White House because his electoral vote tally fell short. In many states, the Electoral College discourages potential voters who know the candidate they favor is likely to lose in a winner-take-all state election.

Lawmakers hoping to propel Maryland into a more prominent role in presidential campaigns have introduced bills that would award the state's electoral votes to the candidate who wins the most votes nationwide. The aim is to prevent a repeat of the 2000 presidential election, in which Democratic nominee Al Gore won the popular vote but lost to Republican George W. Bush in the contest for electoral votes.

WASHINGTON - The Electoral College has been called an accident waiting to happen, because it can produce, as it has in three presidential elections, a winner who is not the popular choice of American voters. It might have happened a fourth time, on Tuesday, when Vice President Al Gore won a narrow majority of the popular vote over Gov. George W. Bush of Texas but faces the possibility of losing the electoral vote because of a razor-thin decision apparently favoring Bush in Florida. The system of using the popular vote in each state to award "electors" to the winning candidate - who, in turn, cast the state's electoral votes in an Electoral College that never meets - is an outgrowth of the Founding Fathers' dispute over the influence of larger and smaller states.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Taking their cue from Texas Gov. George W. Bush's elections emissary, Florida lawmakers yesterday discussed ways for the Republican-controlled state Legislature to intervene in the elections process and control Florida's crucial 25 electoral votes. The top two legislative leaders said they were researching options that could include convening a special legislative session in which lawmakers would choose a method for selecting representatives to the Electoral College, a right they can exercise under federal law in the absence of a state-certified vote count.

In the aftermath of President Barack Obama's near-sweep of the critical Electoral College swing states last month, post-election analysis of the keys to his decisive victory has paid scant attention to one important factor: Mr. Obama's disproportionate focus on swing states began soon after his inauguration and continued throughout his term in office. We expect presidential candidates to target swing states as an election draws near. Since 48 of the 50 states allocate their Electoral College votes on a winner-take-all basis, campaigns focus their scarce resources on states where the outcome is in doubt.

We broke it to her gently over the phone. Ina Taylor, a Democratic Party activist from Bel Air, took the news surprisingly well. Her party had not notified her yet. She's one of the proud, the many and the mildly confused. Ina Taylor, housewife (and so much more), is a presidential elector for Maryland. "I have no idea why they selected me," Taylor said. "But I'm honored because I get to vote twice for Gore. I always say that - `vote twice' - but now I get to do it." In this cliff-hanging presidential race, all eyes and calculators are on the Electoral College.

Don't look now, but the political stars might be aligning to put the candidate who loses the popular vote into the White House once again. This time around, though, it might be the Democrat taking advantage of the odd institution known as the Electoral College. Tom Schaller, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has been touting this scenario since spring: John Kerry takes the populous states that went for Al Gore in 2000 - that's where Gore piled up his 500,000-vote margin over George W. Bush - but in much tighter races.