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Soon the questions will begin about the Electoral College, our country’s misunderstood way of actually picking a president and vice president. The most insightful and powerful question that can be asked about the system is simply, “Huh?”

In this column, I’ll explain what the Electoral College is, and I’ll give you a few arguments for and against its existence.

It’s important to understand the Electoral College — even now, months before the November election — because national polls are useless unless they take the college into account. For example, a Newsweek poll released last week gives an incorrect picture of the current state of the campaign:

“A month after emerging victorious from the bruising Democratic nominating contest, some of Barack Obama’s glow may be fading,” Newsweek reported. “In the latest Newsweek Poll, the Illinois senator leads Republican nominee John McCain by just 3 percentage points, 44 percent to 41 percent. The statistical dead heat is a marked change from last month’s Newsweek poll, where Obama led McCain by 15 points, 51 percent to 36 percent.”

On its face, the poll seems to show that McCain is in a statistical tie with Obama — and gaining ground fast.

If McCain’s strategists are foolish enough to believe such polls, then the election is already over. And he’s lost. Because in reality, McCain is an underdog, with a big job ahead of him.

“Pollster John Zogby says Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has a substantial lead over Republican John McCain in the Electoral College,” the

Austin American-Statesman reported Thursday. “Zogby’s latest Electoral College map of the United States has Obama with 273 electoral votes to 146 for McCain. In Zogby’s previous assessment of the Electoral College map, Obama also had 273 but McCain had 160. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.”

Zogby estimates that 119 votes are still too close to call. And those votes are what this race is about — not the popular vote.

WHAT IT IS

The United States Electoral College is composed of the people who really elect the president and the vice president.

It’s not the popular vote that picks the chief executive — most voters are at least vaguely aware of that, after the 2000 election in which a few thousand votes in Florida and a U.S. Supreme Court challenge decided the race.

Essentially, we voters cast a ballot for president, but we’re really voting for electors. Those 538 electors choose the president, based on how we vote.

But there’s a key difference. Electors vote as state blocs. So if Candidate A wins a state, even narrowly, then all of the state’s electors vote for Candidate A. The result can be — and has been several times — that a candidate can win the popular vote but lose the election.

There are two exceptions, Maine and Nebraska. Their electors vote in congressional district blocs, so those aren’t “winner take all” states.

WHY

That’s an excellent question. It’s because the framers of the U.S. Constitution wanted to avoid direct popular election of the president. Their reasons varied, but for the most part, it was an effort to guard against the “tyranny of the majority.”

In the purest democratic systems, the majority is always right. The framers of the Constitution recognized that in fact, majorities are sometimes wrong. Electors, they reasoned, would be better informed and better judges of the candidates.

WHY NOW

With better communication, an active and pervasive media, do we still need the Electoral College? Are the electors really better informed than the populace, when we have 24-hour coverage and commentary?

There are some arguments for keeping the system, it turns out.

First, it requires widespread support to win. Without the college, in theory, a candidate could focus all of his or her efforts on the most populous states and ignore the others.

If resources were limited (and they always are), smaller states would get bypassed completely. But the Electoral College system gives proportionate, distributed power to less-populated states and regions.

Second, the Electoral College enhances the impact of minority groups. Small groups become the deciding factor in whether a candidate wins all or nothing in a state.

Third, the system ensures that turnout problems don’t throw an election. If it’s sunny in California, for example, but a November snowstorm keeps people at home in the Midwest, the Midwesterners don’t see their voices silenced; all of their electors, though responding to fewer votes, still count.

There are also arguments against the Electoral College.

First, the college makes the popular vote somewhat irrelevant. Four times, in fact, candidates who lost a plurality the popular vote have taken office (1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000). And many more times, candidates have taken office without winning a majority.

There are also claims that the Electoral College discourages voter turnout and participation. Voter registration and turnout drives in “safe” states are a waste of time and resources for both the presumed winner and loser.

And the system forces candidates to focus on the big “swing” states, at the expense of other parts of the country. Pennsylvania, for example, has 21 electoral votes that are up in the air. That state will see much more of both candidates than will Texas (assumed to be safe for McCain) and New York (assumed to be safe for Obama).

Early Returns is the political observations column of staff writer Roy Maynard, who can be reached at 903-596-6291 or at roymaynardtmt@gmail.com.