In recent years, Presidential elections have been extremely tightly contested by the count of the popular vote. In the last three elections, the winning candidate has been able to carry at least fifty-percent of the popular vote, giving him the majority; in 1992 Bill Clinton won the election with less than forty-five percent of the popular vote because he won the plurality—the most of any one candidate—and won in the electoral college; however, in his first election in 2000, George W. Bush won neither the majority nor the plurality of the popular vote, narrowly losing out to Democrat candidate Al Gore. President Bush carried thirty states to Gore’s twenty and won the electoral college by five points.

Hard money is money given by a donor or source directly to a candidate to fund his or her campaign. Soft money is money that is given instead to the party to indirectly fund the campaign of one or more people. Soft money is now, by and large, illegal.

The vast majority of American states, forty-eight out of fifty, allocate all of their votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote in their state during a Presidential election. The only two exceptions are Nebraska and Maine, which allocate their votes proportionally based on the percentage of the popular vote distributed among the various candidates.

A swing state is a state that does not consistently vote for either the Democrats or the Republicans; as such, the way a swing state votes has inflated its influence on the outcome of Presidential election campaigns. Notable swing states at the moment include Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania.

A closed primary, as opposed to an open primary, is defined as a primary election in which only those voters who have registered with the party prior to election day may vote in the election. Semi-closed primaries allow both registered voters and independent voters to vote in primary elections.

The amount of votes in the Electoral College correspond to the  members of the House of Representatives, the  Senators, and the  electors from the District of Columbia. The votes do not correspond to an amount of registered voters.

This question is slightly tricky, but actually easy if you remember your presidents. If you remember who was elected president in 1824 (J.Q. Adams) you don’t even have to remember what the corrupt bargain was!

That said, let’s discuss the so-called “corrupt bargain.” The background to this scene is full of fairly convoluted political history that we will, for the most part, not cover in depth. Essentially, what happens is there are four contenders for the presidency, as follows (the number of Electoral College votes follow each in parentheses): 1. Andrew Jackson (99); 2. J.Q. Adams (84); 3. William H. Crawford (41); 4. Henry Clay (not enough to matter).

While it may seem that Jackson should have won outright (indeed—he received 43% of the popular vote), he failed to achieve a majority in the Electoral College (remember: the EC elects the president!). In fact, NO candidate managed to achieve a majority in the EC, thus the top three contenders (Jackson, Adams, and Crawford) get thrown into the House of Representatives (why is that?).

Here, Clay comes into play. First, and most importantly, Clay was the Speaker of the House—a VERY influential position. Second, he hated Jackson and would pretty much do anything to make sure he didn’t win. So, Clay being the crafty man that he was, struck a deal with Adams: Clay would drum up enough support in the House to elect Adams as president, and in return, Adams would appoint Clay as Secretary of State (then seen as a stepping-stone to the Presidency).

Lo and behold! Adams wins the vote in the House of Representatives, is elected president, and quickly appoints Clay as his Secretary of State. Somewhat [un]surprisingly, Jacksonians were displeased with this result, hence the moniker “corrupt bargain.”

If you know how the number of electors per state is calculated, then you know the answer (3). Remember: each state is entitled to, at the very least, 3 electors. Why? Because the number of electors per state is equal to the number of senators per state + the number of house members. How many senators does CA have? 2. How about ME? 2. Every state, no matter how big or how small, has 2 senators. Period. The only variable in this equation is the number of house members. Remember: the number of house members is calculated based off of population relative to every other state. That said, the absolute lowest number of house members you can possibly have is 1. See, e.g., Alaska. Thus, the lowest number of electors a state can possibly have is 3.

This is a trick question. A presidential candidate (PC) doesn’t win, well, anything based off of popular vote. The PC wins the office if and only if that PC obtains a majority in the Electoral College (EC). In fact, there have been a few times where a PC won the popular vote and lost the election! Take, for example, the election of 1888 (Grover Cleveland v. Benjamin Harrison). Cleveland wins the popular vote, but loses to Harrison in the Electoral College. How is this possible?! Well, it’s a relatively weird function of our voting system.

 Let’s pretend that every state uses a “winner-take-all” Electoral College system. In other words, if a candidate wins the vote percentage in that state, that candidate wins ALL of the electors (let’s say 10) rather than a percentage based off of the number of votes received. So: Candidate 1: 40% of the votes; Candidate 2: 60% of the votes. Candidate 2 gets all 10 electors, even though she didn’t win 100% of the vote. Now let’s switch that. Pretend that we have a proportional system. So, same percentages, but: Candidate 1: 4 electors; candidate 2: 6 electors. Do you see the difference?

Now, pretend every state uses winner-take-all. Assume further that all of the smallest states vote 100% in opposition to Candidate X, and all of the biggest states vote 50.1% FOR candidate X, and 49.9% in opposition. Let’s go a little further. Pretend there are 10 states; 5 tiny (three EC votes each) and 5 massive (20 EC votes each). That’s a total of 115 EC votes, so any candidate must get 58 (rounding up) to win. Each tiny state has 100 people in it, for 500 people total. Each massive state has 1,000 people in it, for 5,000 people total. Assume that everyone is of voting age, and that everyone votes, giving us a grand total of 5,500 voting.  

Now, tally the popular votes. Votes FOR candidate X: 2,505 (.501 * 5000). Votes AGAINST candidate X: 2,995 [(.499 * 5000) + 500]. X loses the popular vote by a pretty hefty margin (over 400 votes).

Now, look at the EC. Votes FOR candidate X: 100 votes (bare majority of every massive state, so (20 * 5)). Votes AGAINST candidate X: 15 (all tiny states, so (5 * 3)).

X gets DESTROYED in the popular vote, but sweeps the EC and wins the presidency. Pretty crazy, right?

This is a straightforward question. If no one candidate receives an absolute majority in the Electoral College, the top three contenders are tossed into the House of Representatives, who will then vote on the candidates. This, of course, became the sore subject of the 1824 “corrupt bargain” election—Jackson wins the popular vote, gets a plurality in the Electoral College, and then loses in the House due to political machinations.