The 2000 presidential election underscored the reality that outcomes in presidential contests do not necessarily follow from the votes cast by American voters. Under the Electoral College, a range of outcomes is possible, and what once might have seemed utterly remote now is clearly possible. Alexander Belenky has focused directly on what he calls extreme outcomes of our presidential elections. This topic is understudied and underanalyzed. He makes a real contribution in a timely way. -Dr. Norman Ornstein, CBS election analyst, American Enterprise Institute Sometimes it takes an "outsider's eye" to see the U.S. political system clearly, and Alexander Belenky's analysis of the presidential election system holds several remarkable surprises for me. Very few scholars have directly addressed fundamental flaws in the Electoral College's logic. Belenky lays bare several flaws. -Prof. David King, Institute of Politics, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Colorado offers . awarding its nine electoral votes proportionate to the popular vote instead of winner take all . Colorado's "make your vote count" initiative seeks to put power in the popular vote . Could success in Colorado start a trend? . Electoral College experts aren't so certain . Alex Belenky, . who has written three books on the topic, including "Extreme Outcomes of U.S. Presidential Elections," says Colorado could prompt some states to dump winner-take-all but argues that the Electoral College is "flexible" and ought to remain in place-at least as a backup. One scenario he favors combines the popular vote and the Electoral College. "If there is at least 50 percent turnout of the electorate, then let the popular vote be decisive," he says, 'If there is not, then rely on the Electoral College." I like it. It's a good incentive to vote. -John Baer, Colo. Offering Electoral Change. Winner Wouldn't "Take All." Philadelphia Daily News, Sept. 28, 2004 ************************************************************************************** The Electoral College got a brief spate of attention in 2000. Many people realized then for the first time that we have a system in which the president is chosen not by the voters, but by 538 electors. It is a ridiculous setup, which thwarts the will of the majority, distorts presidential campaigning and has the potential to produce a true constitutional crisis. -(Abolish The Electoral College, The New York Times, Editorial, August 29, 2004) With another close presidential contest in store, that hardy if decipherable oddity of American Politics, The Electoral College is back in the news. . The Constitution requires someone to win a majority of the electoral votes; otherwise, the House chooses a president from the top three finishers. How do you think the public would react to the discovery that in such a contigent election, each state delegation has one vote, regardless of its size-the Democratic majority from California being matched by single Republican member from Delaware? . . I suspect this whole Electoral College issue is due for serious debate .. -(David Broder, Electoral College Alternatives Deserve Careful Scrutiny, The Seattle Times, Oct 21, 2004) One more surprising features of the controversy surrounding the 2000 election was its failure to spark any substantiated effort to abolish or reform the Electoral College. .The National Commission on Federal Election Reform, headed by former presidents Carter and Ford, decided early on not to even discuss the issue. "I think it is a waste of time to talk about changing the Electoral College," Carter observed. "I would predict that 200 years from now, we will still have the Electoral College'. -(Alexander Keyssar, Peculiar Institution, Boston Globe, October 17, 2004)

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book addresses the peculiarities of the current presidential election system not yet addressed in other publications. It argues that any rules for electing a President that may have a chance to replace the current ones should provide an equal representation of states as equal members of the Union, and of the nation as a whole. This book analyzes the National Popular Vote plan and shows that this plan may violate the Supreme Court decisions on the equality of votes cast in statewide popular elections held to choose state electors. That is, the National Popular Vote plan may violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The book proposes a new election system in which the will of the states and the will of the nation as a whole are determined by direct popular elections for President and Vice President in the 50 states and in D.C. This system a) would elect President a candidate who is the choice of both the nation as a whole and of the states as equal members of the Union, b) would let the current system elect a President only if the nation as a whole and the states as equal members of the Union fail to agree on a common candidate, and c) would encourage the candidates to campaign nationwide. The second edition has been updated to include a proposal on how to make established non-major party presidential candidates and independent candidates welcome participants in national televised presidential debates with the major-party candidates.

The scientific monograph of a survey kind presented to the reader's attention deals with fundamental ideas and basic schemes of optimization methods that can be effectively used for solving strategic planning and operations manage ment problems related, in particular, to transportation. This monograph is an English translation of a considerable part of the author's book with a similar title that was published in Russian in 1992. The material of the monograph embraces methods of linear and nonlinear programming; nonsmooth and nonconvex optimization; integer programming, solving problems on graphs, and solving problems with mixed variables; rout ing, scheduling, solving network flow problems, and solving the transportation problem; stochastic programming, multicriteria optimization, game theory, and optimization on fuzzy sets and under fuzzy goals; optimal control of systems described by ordinary differential equations, partial differential equations, gen eralized differential equations (differential inclusions), and functional equations with a variable that can assume only discrete values; and some other methods that are based on or adjoin to the listed ones."

This is the first book on the U.S. presidential election system to analyze the basic principles underlying the design of the existing system and those at the heart of competing proposals for improving the system. The book discusses how the use of some election rules embedded in the U.S. Constitution and in the Presidential Succession Act may cause skewed or weird election outcomes and election stalemates. The book argues that the act may not cover some rare though possible situations which the Twentieth Amendment authorizes Congress to address. Also, the book questions the constitutionality of the National Popular Vote Plan to introduce a direct popular presidential election "de facto," without amending the Constitution, and addresses the plan's "Achilles' Heel." In particular, the book shows that the plan may violate the Equal Protection Clause from the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Numerical examples are provided to show that the counterintuitive claims of the NPV originators and proponents that the plan will encourage presidential candidates to "chase" every vote in every state do not have any grounds. Finally, the book proposes a plan for improving the election system by combining at the national level the "one state, one vote" principle - embedded in the Constitution - and the "one person, one vote" principle. Under this plan no state loses its current Electoral College benefits while all the states gain more attention of presidential candidates.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book addresses the peculiarities of the current presidential election system not yet addressed in other publications. It argues that any rules for electing a President that may have a chance to replace the current ones should provide an equal representation of states as equal members of the Union, and of the nation as a whole. This book analyzes the National Popular Vote plan and shows that this plan may violate the Supreme Court decisions on the equality of votes cast in statewide popular elections held to choose state electors. That is, the National Popular Vote plan may violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The book proposes a new election system in which the will of the states and the will of the nation as a whole are determined by direct popular elections for President and Vice President in the 50 states and in D.C. This system a) would elect President a candidate who is the choice of both the nation as a whole and of the states as equal members of the Union, b) would let the current system elect a President only if the nation as a whole and the states as equal members of the Union fail to agree on a common candidate, and c) would encourage the candidates to campaign nationwide. The second edition has been updated to include a proposal on how to make established non-major party presidential candidates and independent candidates welcome participants in national televised presidential debates with the major-party candidates.

This is the first book on the U.S. presidential election system to analyze the basic principles underlying the design of the existing system and those at the heart of competing proposals for improving the system. The book discusses how the use of some election rules embedded in the U.S. Constitution and in the Presidential Succession Act may cause skewed or weird election outcomes and election stalemates. The book argues that the act may not cover some rare though possible situations which the Twentieth Amendment authorizes Congress to address. Also, the book questions the constitutionality of the National Popular Vote Plan to introduce a direct popular presidential election "de facto," without amending the Constitution, and addresses the plan's "Achilles' Heel." In particular, the book shows that the plan may violate the Equal Protection Clause from the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Numerical examples are provided to show that the counterintuitive claims of the NPV originators and proponents that the plan will encourage presidential candidates to "chase" every vote in every state do not have any grounds. Finally, the book proposes a plan for improving the election system by combining at the national level the "one state, one vote" principle - embedded in the Constitution - and the "one person, one vote" principle. Under this plan no state loses its current Electoral College benefits while all the states gain more attention of presidential candidates. "

How America Chooses Its Presidents addresses in a simple manner the whole spectrum of issues relating to the Electoral College from the perspective of its logical foundations. This is the first book to question the applicability of the Presidential Succession Act, a Federal Statute, in certain extreme but possible situations. The book argues that the act may not protect the country from election stalemates.

Today, 50 states and DC rather than a college of electors award electoral votes in presidential elections. This appears to violate the one state, one vote principle, the constitutional norm governing the electing of a President by states, since a states electoral vote quota is based on the size of its population. Despite the counting of the nationwide popular vote since the 1824 election, its tally does not have any constitutional status, since the popular vote in every state is no more than a means for determining the winning slate of presidential electors in the state.

The winner-take-all principle of awarding electoral votes makes many states safe for either major party candidate. This narrows election campaigns to a battleground minority of the states and contributes to keeping more than 40% of the electorate uninterested in voting in presidential elections.

Abolishing the existing election system in favor of a direct popular presidential electionby means of a constitutional amendmentseems unlikely. Seventeen small stateswith five and fewer electoral votes eachhave no reason to voluntarily surrender the one state, one vote principle in electing a President in the House of Representatives, as well as the chance of having a say in the Electoral College. The book analyzes a controversial proposal to circumvent the small states by introducing a direct popular presidential election without a constitutional amendment and argues that this proposal is unlikely to prevail either.

The book proposes a modification of the existing election system to allow the country to choose a ticket carrying two mandates that the electorate can give in the electionfrom the nation as a whole and from the states and DC as equal members of the Union. If any two tickets carry one mandate each, the number of electoral votes won by each ticket helps determine the election outcome. If neither a majority of voting voters nor a majority of 51 members of the Union favor any ticket, the Electoral College mechanism takes over as a backup, and if it fails, the election is thrown into the US Congress.

The book, written for a general readership, provides an overview of original election rules, determined by Article 2 of the US Constitution, and contemporary ones, determined by the Twelfth Amendment.

Understanding the book does not require any special knowledge, making it accessible to people of all walks of life at any age. At the same time, the readers of How America Chooses Its Presidents will undoubtedly improve their ability to think logically, making them more critical of statements about the Electoral College and about election campaigns.

This is the first book in Russian that describes the system of electing a U. S. President. Look at the following statements concerning U.S. Presidential elections: 1. The system of electing a U.S. President (the election system) was never designed to service the popular will. 2. The currently existing election system does not follow some major ideas of the Founding Fathers. 3. Certain election rules are such that if they were to be applied, an intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court in the election being in progress would be almost inevitable. 4. Amendment 12 of the U.S. Constitution contains at least six puzzles relevant to U.S. Presidential elections with answers that have remained unknown for more than 200 years. 5. The text of the U.S. Constitution contains a mathematically incorrect clause. 6. Skillfully using the election system may allow a U.S. Presidential candidate to win the U.S Presidency with, for instance, less than 30% of the nationwide popular vote. 7. The application of some of the election rules can lead to a constitutional crisis in the country. 8. When Americans cast their votes in U.S. Presidential elections, they do not vote for President or for Vice President, despite what they may see on the ballots or on the voting machines. 9. The "winner-take-all" principle does not encourage U.S. Presidential candidates to fight for each and every vote in a state or in DC. 10. Many statements about the Electoral College mechanism aimed at substantiating its presence in the election system, including those in the government publications, are no more than myths of their authors, no matter how plausible these myths may seem. 11. An electoral tie in the Electoral College may be resolved not necessarily in favor of a person voted for as President who has support from at least 26 delegations in the House of Representatives. 12. There is no need to abolish the Electoral College mechanism in order to make every cast vote valuable in deciding the election outcome. If these statements have drawn your attention, and you are interested in finding explanations, this book is written for you, and you will find these explanation in it. The system of electing a U.S. President (the election system) is very logically designed. This system has existed for more than 200 years, and many of its basic principles and conceptions have remained unchanged. Numerous attempts to make changes in these principles or even replace this system with a more understandable direct popular election system have so far failed. At the same time, some changes that have been made in the initial design of the system have engendered logical flaws in certain election rules and have made these rules fuzzy. These fuzzy rules are not given much attention in the media, since, under the existing two major party political system in the country, U.S. Presidential elections are usually decided in the Electoral College. Many proponents of the Electoral College mechanism try to substantiate this mechanism by claiming that the existing election system reflects ideas of the Founding Fathers embedded in the U.S. Constitution. However, the election system that was meant by the Founding Fathers and the election system that is currently in use are two substantially different election systems though both of the them employ the Electoral College mechanism. The existing election system and a direct popular system of electing a U.S. President (if it were introduced) would produce the same election outcomes only in a narrow spectrum of possible developments in U.S. Presidential elections. Moreover, the system of electing a U.S. President was never designed to service the popular will, and a U.S. President is not, generally, a President of the American people and is not elected by the nation as a whole.