An electoral college is a set of electors who are selected to elect a candidate to a particular office. Often these represent different organizations or entities, with each organization or entity represented by a particular number of electors or with votes weighted in a particular way. Many times, though, the electors are simply important people whose wisdom would ideally provide a better choice than a larger body. The system can ignore the wishes of a general membership.
Read more about Electoral College: Origins of Electoral Colleges, Modern Electoral Colleges
Famous quotes containing the words electoral and/or college:
“Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“... when you make it a moral necessity for the young to dabble in all the subjects that the books on the top shelf are written about, you kill two very large birds with one stone: you satisfy precious curiosities, and you make them believe that they know as much about life as people who really know something. If college boys are solemnly advised to listen to lectures on prostitution, they will listen; and who is to blame if some time, in a less moral moment, they profit by their information?”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)