GED Practice Question: Election Math

Hey. Everyone’s all up on this New Year’s GED stuff, get your GED for the new year, and all that. I say, get your GED. Nuff said. New year, no new year, jus’ sit down and do it. All you got to do is study, an’ that GED is yours. Right?

Now, to some real serious matters. It’s almost January 3, that means those people out in Iowa and New Hampshire are voting for who’s up for President. I gotta bug Becca ’bout gettin’ some election stuff on her GED social studies blog, cuz this is important stuff.

Candidates in both parties are real close… Obama and Hillary are neck in neck for the Dems, with Edwards still in the mix, and the Republicans… you got Romney, Huckabee, and McCain. Whew. So, it’s like, we’re using this system to boil it down to two choices. If everyone just voted for someone for president, votes’d be all over the place. Thinkin’ about this stuff is good for your GED skills, so think… is the way we do it the best way?

That makes me wonder about what happened in 2000. I wasn’t paying too good attention back then, wasn’t into my GED or anything yet, but I guess good ol’ G.W. won the election but not the “popular vote.” Somewhere in the math… (yup, math like’s on the GED) less than half the people voted for him and he still got to be president. Now, how’s that work?

Here’s the deal.

President gets elected by “electoral college votes.” Each state’s got a certain number of them. If most people in a state vote for you, you get all the electoral college votes for the states. So, let’s have a GED practice question. Take this example.

Alabama 9 electoral college votes 4.5 million people
Alaska 3 electoral college votes 0.6 million people
Arizona 10 electoral college votes 5.1 million people
Arkansas 6 electoral college votes 2.7 million people

And it goes on and on like that.

So, here’s your GED practice….

Alabama: Democrat = 2.2 million votes
Republican = 2.3 million votes

Alaska: Democrat = .5 million votes
Republican = .1 million votes

Arizona: Democrat = 2.3 million votes
Republican = 2.8 million votes

Arkansas: Democrat = 1.7 million votes
Republican = 1 million votes

What’s the total popular vote for each candidate?

What’s the total electoral vote for each candidate?

If these were all the states, who wins?

Test out your GED skills, and I’ll get you an answer next time.

To find out more about the GED test and GED test preparation, visit The GED Academy at passGED.com.