Directions: Study the source and then answer the questions.

Understanding America’s Electoral College

Note: Gary Gregg, referred to in the source, is the director of the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center, a nonpartisan academic center that focuses on civic education.

A direct popular vote wasn’t a serious consideration, [Gary] Gregg says, in an era when people were spread throughout the country without today’s communication tools or a developed party system to help them sort through candidates. Elections might frequently have ended with several candidates so close that the House of Representatives would decide the president.

Basing electors on congressional representation mirrors the compromise among states regarding those delegations. States with larger populations are granted a larger, proportionate number of House members, and states with smaller populations are allotted the same number of senators (two) that more populous states have.

The District of Columbia and 48 of the states give all their electoral votes to the candidate who wins their state, whether they squeak by or accumulate thousands more votes. Only Nebraska and Maine allow more than one candidate to win electoral support.

—U.S. Embassy & Consulate in the Kingdom of Denmark