A voters choice, or a game of chance?

November 2008 is coming up fast and with it a new presidential election.

In honor of this occasion we have decided to start a blog to discuss
and analyze one of the most unique aspects of our presidential voting
system, the Winner Take All section.

The results of this analysis will surprise 95% of the voting public.

Today - we will start with the "Winner Take All" aspect of the electoral voting system.

The U.S. presidential election actually consists of 51 separate elections, one in each state plus one in the District of Columbia. (for the sake of simplicity we will refer to the District of Columbia as a state). Forty nine of these states follow the "Winner Take All" system, two do not.

Any presidential candidate acquiring a plurality of the popular votes within each of these 49 states, wins ALL of that state’s electoral votes.

The number of electoral votes acquired by the winning candidates in each state are forwarded To Washington D.C. where they are compiled and the total number of electoral votes won by each candidate is determined.

Losing candidates in these 49 states are not entitled to any electoral votes.

On our next blog post, we will discuss what happens to those votes cast for the losing candidate.
Were they wasted? Did it pay to vote?