Is it mandatory that the electoral votes reflect the popular vote of each state? Can the vote be cast other than what the people decide?
Forty eight of the fifty states (plus DC) have a "winner take all" system.Maine and Nebraska are a bit different.I think I've read discussions about what,if anything,an "Elector" is *required* to do when casting his/her vote.IIRC these discussions have concluded that there's little,or even nothing,that can be done to prevent an Elector from voting for anyone he/she wishes.But even if,by chance,that's correct it's my understanding that it's very,very rare (almost unheard of in fact) for an Elector to vote for anyone but the candidate to whom he/she is "pledged".
Out of personal curiosity I'm gonna look up "faithless Elector" and see what pops up.
When you vote for president, you are actual voting for a slate of electors (real people) picked by the campaigns, who are pledged to vote for the canidates. The are chosen for their loyalty and then meet in December to actually cast the electoral votes in their state capitals.
Rarely, a faithless elector votes another way, but not in a way that changes the outcome. Faithless electors cast a vote each for Reagan instead of Ford (76), Bensen instead of Dukakis (88), and Edwards instead of Kerry (04).
The following is a quote from http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/about.html
“Most states have a “winner-take-all” system that awards all electors to the winning presidential candidate. However, Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of “proportional representation.””
It seems like a good article about how the electoral college works.
As for your earlier post about O’Reilly... I personally have found both him and his ghost written books to be unreliable sources of information. Clinton certainly does not have this election wrapped up; looking at the current momentum it would appear that Trump is the one who will peaking at the appropriate time.