The Fairness of the Electorial College

[Archer 007]

An article to help spark thing:

Comedian Jay Leno put it best describing the election of 2000 – who would have thought Al Gore would be more popular, and George Bush would finish ahead in college?

Sadly for Al Gore, a presidential election really isn't a popularity contest. Despite winning over half a million more votes than his Republican rival, Gore was forced to endure the sight of George Bush being inaugurated as the 43rd president of the United States.

That happened because the United States is a federal republic, not a democracy. The system by which a president is chosen – the Electoral College – is biased in favor of the Republican Party. And recent demographic trends, reflected in the census figures just being released, will further entrench that bias.

The census figures, which tend to favor the Republican Party by undercounting urban and minority populations, are almost uniformly bad news for the Democratic Party at the presidential, as well as congressional, level. Reapportionment of congressional districts means every representative gained or lost in each state is also a vote in the Electoral College gained or lost in that state.

Of the states carried by Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, New York and Pennsylvania will lose two of their Electors; Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin will lose one each. Only California gains an Elector, making a net loss of seven Electors.

Conversely, while Indiana, Mississippi, Ohio, and Oklahoma among the states carried by George W. Bush lose one Elector each, Colorado, Nevada and North Carolina all gain one Elector, while Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Texas gain two Electors apiece, a net gain of seven Electors.

Accordingly, if Bush had won exactly the same states on 2000 census figures, he would have beaten Gore by 278 to 260 votes in the Electoral College, a majority of 18 votes, as opposed to the actual wafer-thin margin. If Gore had carried New Hampshire, which slipped away by less than 2% of the vote, in the existing electoral map, he would have won the election. Under the new figures he still would have lost.

The census figures are the latest indication of the long-term decline in the political position of the Democratic Party. Throughout the second half of the Twentieth Century the heartland Democratic states of the Midwest and Northeast have consistently exported people – and voters – to the Republican South and West. This shifting balance of the population is reflected in the Electoral College.

If, back in 1952, Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson had won exactly the same states Al Gore did in 2000 he would have beaten Dwight Eisenhower by 272 votes to 259 in the Electoral College. Even as late as 1988, if Democrat Michael Dukakis had won the Gore states he would have beaten Bush senior by 271 votes to 267 in the Electoral College – an exact reversal of the Bush junior margin twelve years later.

The Democratic Party is now faced with the unpleasant choice of continuing to fight for a declining liberal base, or tacking right to be competitive in the growth states and thereby encouraging further ultra-leftist third parties in the Nader mould.

The demographic trends accentuate the inherent bias towards the Republican Party in the Electoral College.

To illustrate this partisan imbalance, the following table shows the Democratic and Republican parties have fairly evenly divided the popular vote between them since World War II. Democratic candidates in presidential elections over the past half-century have won an average of 46.1% of the popular vote. Republican candidates have won an average of 49.1% over the same period.

But Democratic candidates have won an average of only 39.2% of the votes in the Electoral College since World War II, compared to an average of 59.4% for the Republican Party.


Eleven states (Alaska, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Indiana, and Virginia), now worth 62 Electors in the Electoral College, haven't voted for the Democratic Party ticket in a presidential election for 36 years – nine elections in a row. Another eight states (Montana, Colorado, Arizona, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, and North Carolina), now worth 60 Electors in the Electoral College, have only voted Democratic once during that time. That's a base of 122 Electors for the Republican candidate going into the 2004 election campaign.

It's effectively impossible for a Republican to get blown out in the Electoral College the way Democratic candidates were in 1972 and 1984. George Bush senior beat Michael Dukakis in 1988 by 7.8% of the popular vote and a margin of 426 to 111 votes in the Electoral College. Bill Clinton actually beat Bob Dole in 1996 by a slightly wider popular vote margin – 8.7% – but that translated into a smaller majority in the Electoral College, 379 to 159. So, while Republicans have won more than three quarters of the Electoral College on six occasions since World War II, only Lyndon Johnson has achieved that feat for the Democratic Party.

This is because Republican Electors are over-represented in the Electoral College. Gore easily carried California, which had a population of 29,760,021 on 1990 census figures, and 54 Electors in the Electoral College last year. The twelve Rocky Mountain and Great Plains states that Bush carried – Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming – collectively had a population of only 20,680,055, yet put together they had 60 Electors in the Electoral College last year (and, incidentally, they have 24 Senators between them to just two from California).

Therefore, a vote in the Electoral College came much cheaper for Bush than for Gore. An Elector in California represented 551,111 voters in the Electoral College last year – an Elector in North Dakota represented only 212,933 voters. An Elector in New York represented 545,165 voters in the Electoral College last year – an Elector in Wyoming represented only 151,196 voters. And so on.

So it shouldn't have come as a great surprise when the system delivered a conflicting result last year – it was bound to happen sooner or later. Bear in mind that there have been five elections since the last Electoral College misfire in 1888 that tiny shifts in the vote, sometimes just a few hundred people in a handful of states, could have delivered the presidency to the candidate finishing second in the popular vote.

Democrat Woodrow Wilson was re-elected in 1916, defeating Republican Charles Evan Hughes by 591,385 popular votes, a margin of 3.1%. But his margin in the Electoral College was only 277 to 254. Wilson carried California by just 3,806 votes, a margin of only 0.34%. If Hughes had been able to convince just 2,000 more citizens of the Grizzly Bear state to swing their votes from Wilson he would have carried the Electoral College, 267 to 264, and the presidency.

Democrat Harry Truman won his legendary upset in 1948 with a healthy majority, beating Republican Tom Dewey by 2,188,054 popular votes, a 4.5% margin. But his 303 to 189 margin in the Electoral College was a fragile one. Strom Thurmond won 38 southern Electors. Truman carried Ohio by only 7,107 votes, a 0.24% margin, and California by only 17,865 votes, a 0.44% margin – if both of those states had swung to Dewey, Truman would have led 253 to 239 in the Electoral College, and neither man would have held a majority of Electors. If Dewey had added Illinois, which he lost by 33,612 votes, or 0.85%, to his total he would have secured a bare majority in the Electoral College, 267 to 225.

JFK's razor thin Democratic victory in 1960, by only 118,574 votes, 0.2% ahead of Republican Richard Nixon, could have easily crumbled in the Electoral College, where he clawed his way to a 303 to 219 majority. He won Hawaii in its first presidential election by only 115 votes, a microscopic 0.06% margin. Notoriously, he carried Illinois by only 8,858 votes, a hairs-breadth 0.18% margin. Missouri went Democratic by only 9,980 votes, a mere 0.52% margin. If those tiny margins had been overturned, Kennedy would have fallen behind Nixon in the Electoral College, 260 to 262. Because a bloc of 14 southern Electors were backing Harry Byrd, to win an outright majority, 278 to 244, Nixon would have had to carry New Jersey, which he lost by 22,091 votes, only 0.85% behind Kennedy.

The only Republican, prior to Bush, to have won a tight election in the Twentieth Century was Richard Nixon in 1968. He finished 510,315 votes, 0.7% of the total, ahead of Democrat Hubert Humphrey in the popular vote. He won 301 votes in the Electoral College, to 191 for Humphrey and 46 for George Wallace, yet another southern spoiler. But it would have been much harder for Humphrey to build an Electoral College majority than a Republican who had finished a comparably close second in the popular vote.

The closest-fought opportunities were Missouri (where Humphrey finished second by 20,488 votes, a losing margin of 1.13%), New Jersey (Humphrey 61,261 votes, or 2.13% behind), and Ohio (Humphrey 90,428 votes, or 2.28% behind). Had Humphrey overturned all those majorities, he and Nixon would be deadlocked in the Electoral College with 246 votes each. Both men would have been bereft of a majority, and Wallace would have thrown the election into the House. To win outright, Humphrey would have to overcome a Nixon majority in Illinois of 134,960 votes, a margin of 2.92%, to secure a 272 to 220 majority in the Electoral College.

The closest election prior to last year was 1976. Again, Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, finished 1,682,970 popular votes ahead of Republican president Gerald Ford, a margin of 2.1%. But his majority in the Electoral College was only 297 to 240. Carter had to cling by his fingertips to victories in Ohio (by 11,116 votes, a margin of only 0.27%) and Wisconsin (by 35,245 votes, a 1.68% margin) to claim the presidency. If those states had shifted just slightly, Ford, who was appointed vice president, then succeeded to the presidency, would have extended his tenure in the White House with an Electoral College majority of 276 to 261 after being rejected by a majority of the voters.

The outcome of election 2000 could have easily been even more perverse. Gore won Oregon by less than 8,000 votes, Wisconsin and Iowa by less than 4,000, and New Mexico by less than 500. Slight shifts would have given them to Bush, padding his margin in the Electoral College to 301 to 237, while still leaving Gore more than 500,000 votes ahead in the popular count.

The democratic impulse is to correct that imbalance. Public opinion polls have shown Americans favored abolishing the Electoral College by majorities of 58% in 1967, 81% in 1968, 75% in 1981, and 61% in 1987. Polls taken immediately after the election showed large majorities still favored an amendment to the Constitution that would allow for popular election of the president. Interestingly, in a CNN/USA Today Gallup poll 77% of Gore voters favored such an amendment, but only 44% of Bush voters did so.

Politicians are scrambling to seize the mood. Within days of her own election, Hillary Clinton said "I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it's time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president." Bi-partisan proposals are already going forward in Congress.

But their chances are not good. There have been more proposals for Constitutional amendments on reforming or eliminating the Electoral College than on any other subject, more than 700 over the past 200 years, but none have been passed by Congress.

In response to Senator Clinton, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell argued "If we did away with the Electoral College, an awful lot of states would never get a visit from a presidential candidate." (Of course, an awful lot of states never get a visit from a presidential candidate now – New York, for example).

The prospect of reforming the Electoral College goes to the heart of the federal structure of the United States. Under the most common method for amending the Constitution, an amendment must be proposed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress and then ratified by three-quarters of the states.

And that's where the partisan fun begins, because the state legislatures are very aware of the fact that the Electoral College provides a partisan advantage for the Republican Party. The very states which have the most to lose from the abolition of the Electoral College – Wyoming, North Dakota, Montana, Utah, all the thinly populated states which stretch across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains – are the very states which provide the Republican Party with its bedrock support.

It was the thin states that gave Bush the presidency, and it was those states that the federal system was designed to protect. It is the pervasive fear throughout the thin states that if the president were chosen by direct election, whatever influence they retain through their disproportionate strength in the Electoral College would disappear, swamped beneath the massive populations of the mega-states.

And it is the thin states that make it so difficult to get the required three-quarters majority necessary to ratify an amendment to the Constitution. The thin states killed the Equal Rights Amendment, even though polls consistently showed a popular majority supported that proposal becoming law. Ironically, they could again use their disproportionate weight, compared to population, to kill an amendment intended to better represent the popular will.

It will take more than just one rogue election to galvanize any change to the system. And while Democrats continue to dominate the major states while losing the thin ones we run the risk of delivering a tainted mandate to future presidents.

Year  DPV   DEV   RPV  REV
1948	49.6	57.1	45.1	35.6	  
1952	44.4	16.8	55.1	83.2	  
1956	42.0	13.7	57.4	86.1	  
1960	49.7	56.4	49.5	41.2	  
1964	61.1	90.0	38.5	10.0	  
1968	42.7	35.5	43.4	55.9	  
1972	37.5	3.0	60.7	96.6	  
1976	50.1	55.2	48.0	44.6	  
1980	41.0	9.1	50.7	90.9	  
1984	40.6	2.4	58.8	97.6	  
1988	45.6	20.6	53.4	79.2	  
1992	43.3	68.8	37.7	31.2	  
1996	49.2	70.4	40.7	29.6	  
2000	48.4	49.6	47.9	50.4	  
1948-2000	46.1	39.2	49.1	59.4

 

[Archer 007]

Gasp. Messed up the poll. It was suppost to have options for non-US members. Well, people can just vote yes or no, I guess.

Also, I read a book recently about why the electorial college is a good thing. The only respond they had is that we've always used it and that any other method would inspire voter fraud, which i've yet to figure out.

The next thread will be ideas to replace it.

 

[WillJ]

The electoral college is not only an unfair method of electing somebody, it is quite frankly, a ******ed method as well. I have yet to hear one good reason to keep it, as opposed to the several good reasons to get rid of it, the most important of which is common sense: the person with the most votes should win.

The electoral college isn't even accurate in terms of population representation. I don't know where, but somewhere there's a link that displays how much each person's vote counts depending on what state they reside in. And it's certainly not equal for everybody. Not to mention that dividing the election process into states is silly anyway.

Edit: And as for ideas to replace it, here's one: The candidate with the most popular votes *gasp* wins!

 

[Archer 007]

According to my 2004 Encyclopaedia Britannica Almanac, the number of representatives per person ranges from 495,000 (Wyoming) to 905,000 (Montana). The Electoral College is a bit different, but that just shows how broken the current method is. Since every state get at least 1 vote, we need to increase the House to 565 seats.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

The system has failed both ways (Democrats or Republicans). And theese issues are generally raised after such a failure. The irony is that the winners will want to preserve the system that brought them to power.

 

[cgannon64]

Wasn't the electoral college put there in the first place because the leaders didn't trust the public?

I wouldn't mind it as much if electoral college voters were allowed (which I think they are, but they don't) to split the state. So, for example, if Bush wins 60% of a state, he only gets 60% of the college (of course they'd have to round, etc).

 

[WillJ]

Originally posted by cgannon64
I wouldn't mind it as much if electoral college voters were allowed (which I think they are, but they don't) to split the state. So, for example, if Bush wins 60% of a state, he only gets 60% of the college (of course they'd have to round, etc).

In other words, make it as if there were no electoral college at all?

 

[cgannon64]

I was thinking of working within the system, but...yes.

IIRC they did do it that way a while ago...maybe...

 

[Archer 007]

No, cgannon speaks of the proportion system. That is one of the replacement ideas. The other idea is called the "bonus" system, which would keep things as they are now, except give 102 electoral votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote.

The key agruement for the Electoral College is that someone could win the White House with as little as 40% of the popular vote. Of course, the system is almost like that. We could also remedy that by, if any candiate fails to gain 50% of the vote, having a runoff election bewteen the top two candiates.

 

[Archer 007]

Originally posted by cgannon64
I was thinking of working within the system, but...yes.

IIRC they did do it that way a while ago...maybe...

They do it that way in Maine and Nebraska. The statewide winner gets two votes (the senators) and the rest are give to the winners in respective congressional districts.

 

[WillJ]

Originally posted by archer_007
The key agruement for the Electoral College is that someone could win the White House with as little as 40% of the popular vote. Of course, the system is almost like that. We could also remedy that by, if any candiate fails to gain 50% of the vote, having a runoff election bewteen the top two candiates.

I don't see what's wrong with someone winning with 40% of the vote.

 

[Archer 007]

Originally posted by cgannon64
Wasn't the electoral college put there in the first place because the leaders didn't trust the public?

Yes, that was the original reason.

Federalist #68, written by Alexander Hamilton, originally published March 14, 1788

The mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded. I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.

It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.

Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.

Another and no less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice.

All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by the convention; which is, that the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President. Their votes, thus given, are to be transmitted to the seat of the national government, and the person who may happen to have a majority of the whole number of votes will be the President. But as a majority of the votes might not always happen to centre in one man, and as it might be unsafe to permit less than a majority to be conclusive, it is provided that, in such a contingency, the House of Representatives shall select out of the candidates who shall have the five highest number of votes, the man who in their opinion may be best qualified for the office.

The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says:
"For forms of government let fools contest–
That which is best administered is best,"–
yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.

The Vice-President is to be chosen in the same manner with the President; with this difference, that the Senate is to do, in respect to the former, what is to be done by the House of Representatives, in respect to the latter.

The appointment of an extraordinary person, as Vice-President, has been objected to as superfluous, if not mischievous. It has been alleged, that it would have been preferable to have authorized the Senate to elect out of their own body an officer answering that description. But two considerations seem to justify the ideas of the convention in this respect. One is, that to secure at all times the possibility of a definite resolution of the body, it is necessary that the President should have only a casting vote. And to take the senator of any State from his seat as senator, to place him in that of President of the Senate, would be to exchange, in regard to the State from which he came, a constant for a contingent vote. The other consideration is, that as the Vice-President may occasionally become a substitute for the President, in the supreme executive magistracy, all the reasons which recommend the mode of election prescribed for the one, apply with great if not with equal force to the manner of appointing the other. It is remarkable that in this, as in most other instances, the objection which is made would lie against the constitution of this State. We have a Lieutenant-Governor, chosen by the people at large, who presides in the Senate, and is the constitutional substitute for the Governor, in casualties similar to those which would authorize the Vice-President to exercise the authorities and discharge the duties of the President.

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by WillJ
I don't see what's wrong with someone winning with 40% of the vote.

That's not exactly an overwhelming mandate from the people. Basically, if you win with 40%, it means you're good at manipulating the electoral college, not that the people want you there...

 

[Kentonio]

Originally posted by archer_007


The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue.

 

[Archer 007]

Originally posted by cgannon64


That's not exactly an overwhelming mandate from the people. Basically, if you win with 40%, it means you're good at manipulating the electoral college, not that the people want you there...

That was an agruement for election without the Electoral College. With the Electoral College, that would only happen if someone split the oppisition votes, like in 1992.

 

[Zarn]

It gives more fairness to the less populated states. I know big states still control the elections, but Bush's smaller state voters pulled him throught. Otherwise, who would even care about those states? The candidates would just have to hang out in California, New York, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Illinois.

California- about 35.4 million people
Montana- about 0.9 million people

California- 54 electoral votes (about 655,555 per electoral vote)
Montana- 3 electoral votes (about 300,000 per electoral vote)

Some may say this would be unfair to Californians, but if you think about it, the candidates are still more willing to appeal to big states anyway. Although now, Montana and some others would get some consideration from them (the politicians).

Election 2000: Since the Dems didn't appeal to the smaller states enough, the Republicans took it. They were concentrating on the larger states and lost. All those little states could add up.

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by Zarn
It gives more fairness to the less populated states. I know big states still control the elections, but Bush's smaller state voters pulled him throught. Otherwise, who would even care about those states? The candidates would just have to hang out in California, New York, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Illinois.

California- about 35.4 million people
Montana- about 0.9 million people

California- 54 electoral votes (about 655,555 per electoral vote)
Montana- 3 electoral votes (about 300,000 per electoral vote)

Some may say this would be unfair to Californians, but if you think about it, the candidates are still more willing to appeal to big states anyway. Although now, Montana and some others would get some consideration from them (the politicians).

Election 2000: Since the Dems didn't appeal to the smaller states enough, the Republicans took it. They were concentrating on the larger states and lost. All those little states could add up.

I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but couldn't a candidate still win the popular vote the same way Bush won the electoral college - campaigning to and winning the South and Midwest?

 

[andrewgprv]

Do away with it, as a resident of Idaho I currently feel that my vote towards a democratic nominee is useless. Idaho will have all it's electors go towards Bush, that is not even a question. In theory my vote is now going towards Bush even though he is not the president I want. Let my vote go towards my candidate. We need a popular vote to decide our president.

 

[Stapel]

The current american election system is quite normal for a federal country, I think.

What really beats me: How can a country like the USA, ahead in technology on many terrains, still have a obsolete voting system using papers, pencils and other ancient methods to count votes?

 

[vonork]

I quastion(a bit of topic perhaps) - what's the deal with registration before you vote?

& does it say that at lest 50%(or something) of population must vote to have the election to be legitim, or could one person vote on himself and become president?