Hi
Could somebody help me out? OALD says the following: '(British English) a group of people who are chosen to represent the members of a political party, etc. in the election of a leader’ whereas Cambridge says: ‘a group of people whose votes are determined by how the people vote in each state, and who officially elect the president and vice president in the US’. Does an electoral college exist in both Britain and the US? I don’t know any more.
I don’t know about the UK, but here in the US we use an electoral college to elect the President. In fact, this is the only electoral college we use, so it is usually capitalized: The Electoral College. Both of your definitions apply, since this group of people represent their political party, either Democrats or Republicans and they are chosen by the voters in each state. In the US, we do not vote directly for the President, we elect delegates for the Electoral College who have promised to vote for either the Democratic or Republican candidate. It is confusing, ridiculous, and most Americans do not even really understand how it works.
Thanks for shedding some light on this. I’m not such a political animal myself, as they say, but since electoral systems are so different in every democratic country I started wondering about it when I read those two definitions, especially since the elections in my country are coming up next October and I don’t even know how that really works.