ABSTRACT
The people accepts the democratic formula, its representative corollary, the simple majority rule, and some working definition of who belongs to the electoral community. There still remain many slips between doctrine and operation. For example, just how do they calculate the majority? This seems arithmetically self-evident, but if we translate the arithmetic into political procedures they find that there is no single or easy answer to the question. The trouble arises over the choice of parameters for the calculation: that is, in terms of political procedures, the choice of the district or grouping within which the votes will be taken. The Electoral College in the American system was originally intended to be, a genuinely "representative" body. It is merely an accounting device which registers on a state-by-state basis the summation of the results of the separate state plebiscites on the choice of President and Vice President.
