Secretary of State
Presidential Electors Meet and Cast Their Votes

(Frankfort, KY)-  Kentuckians from across the Commonwealth gathered at the State Capitol to witness Kentucky’s eight Presidential Electors cast their ballots for President and Vice President of the United States of America. John McCain and Sarah Palin received all eight votes for President and Vice-President, respectively.  McCain and Palin won Kentucky’s popular vote by nearly 300,000 votes.

“This vote today represents another step in the Presidential electoral process,” stated Secretary of State Trey Grayson.  “The electors in Kentucky chose to follow the lead of Kentucky’s citizens by backing the winners of the popular vote in Kentucky.”

The Electoral College was established by the founding fathers as a compromise between election of the President by Congress and election by popular vote. The people of the United States vote for the electors, as designated by a vote for a particular slate of candidates, who then vote for the President and Vice-President.

On the Monday following the second Wednesday of December, as established in federal law, each state's Electors meet in their respective state capitals and cast their electoral votes, one for President and one for Vice President. The electoral votes are then sealed and transmitted from each state to the President of the U.S. Senate who, on the following January 8, opens and reads them before both houses of the Congress.

The candidates with the most electoral votes will be declared the next President and Vice-President of the United States.  If the Electors from every state cast their ballots in conjunction with the state’s popular vote, Barack Obama and Joseph Biden will be elected by a vote of 365 votes to McCain and Palin’s 173 votes (Nebraska is expected to cast one electoral vote to Obama and Biden because their state allocates votes to winners of congressional districts and Obama and Biden won one congressional district to McCain and Palin’s two).  Electors in twenty-four states are not bound to vote for the winner of the popular election, as is the case in Kentucky. 

Kentucky receives eight (8) electoral votes equal to the number of its U.S. Senators plus the number of its U.S. Representatives.  The electors for Kentucky as chosen by the Republican Party were:

Robert Gable (Frankfort) – At-large

                        Elizabeth Thomas (Flemingsburg) – At-large

                        James Snider (Franklin) – 1^st Congressional District

                        Walter Baker (Glasgow) – 2^nd Congressional District

Edna Fulkerson (Louisville) – 3^rd Congressional District

Amy Towles (Ft. Thomas) – 4^th Congressional District

Nancy Mitchell (Corbin) – 5^th Congressional District

Don Ball (Lexington) – 6^th Congressional District

            Robert Gable and Nancy Mitchell were elected Permanent Chairman of the Electors and Permanent Secretary of Electors, respectively.

            For more information about the electoral college, please visit the Federal Register with the National Archives and Records Administration at: http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/index.html.

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