Tolland Democratic Town Committee

Original Story by Tolland Patch available here:

TOLLAND, CT – A local man has been selected as a Democratic member of the Electoral College.

Tolland resident Steve Jones on Thursday called the selection “an honor.”

“Being an elector in such a historic election year is a personal honor and a tremendous privilege,” he added. “I am proud to put my hometown of Tolland on the map and represent the great state of Connecticut in the Electoral College. I thank everyone at the state convention who endorsed me to be their elector.”

Jones said the selection process “seems to be fairly informal.”

Connecticut gets seven – one for each congressional district and one for each senator.

“The state party looks to balance out nominating electors by picking an elector for each congressional district, but also providing diversity in terms age/race/gender as well,” Jones said. “One underlying theme is selecting electors who have either been consistently faithful/engaged in democratic politics and this appointment is a observed as a recognition for their civic service.”

Electors meet in their respective state capitals the Monday after the second Wednesday in December, at which time they cast their electoral votes on separate ballots for president and vice president, Jones said.

Connecticut employs a “winner-takes-all rule” for the Electoral College, meaning the candidate who receives a majority of the popular vote, or a plurality of the popular vote ( getting less than 50 percent but more than any other candidate), gets all of the state’s electoral votes.

Connecticut electors individually cast ballots for each office in an antique ballot box said to have been manufactured with wood from the Charter Oak. Each of the state’s electors must complete six Certificates of Vote. The electors certify the Certificates of Vote and copies of the Certificates are then sent to the president of the Senate, two the Archivist of the U.S. (chief official overseeing the National Archives), two to Connecticut’s Secretary of the State, and one to the chief judge of the U.S. district court in Hartford.

Founding fathers established the Electoral College in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the president by a vote in Congress and election of the president by a popular vote of qualified citizens.

The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your Senators. Read more about the allocation of electoral votes.