How Does the Electoral College Work?

What is the Electoral College?

The National Archives describes the Electoral College as a process, not a place.^[1] It has three parts: electors are selected, they meet and vote for President and Vice President, and Congress counts their votes.^[1] The name also refers to the electors themselves, the group of people who choose the President and Vice President.^[4] The Constitution's framers set the system up partly as a compromise between election of the President by Congress and election by a popular vote of qualified citizens.^[1]

Each presidential candidate has a slate of electors in a state, generally chosen by the candidate's political party there, and a vote for the candidate is really a vote for that slate.^[1]

How many electoral votes does each state get?

There are 538 electors, and a candidate needs a majority of 270 electoral votes to be elected President.^[1] Each state has as many electors as it has members of Congress: one for each of its seats in the House of Representatives plus two for its senators.^[1][2] The District of Columbia has 3 electors under the 23rd Amendment, which gives it the number it would have as a state, but no more than the least populous state.^[1][5] U.S. territories do not take part in the Electoral College.^[4]

Electoral votes are divided among the states based on the census.^[2] The current allocation comes from the 2020 Census and applies to the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections.^[2] California has the most electoral votes, 54, followed by Texas with 40, Florida with 30 and New York with 28.^[2] Wyoming, Vermont and the District of Columbia are among those with 3 each.^[2]

• California54
• Texas40
• Florida30
• New York28
• Illinois19
• Pennsylvania19
• Ohio17
• Georgia16
• North Carolina16
• Michigan15

Source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration [2]

How do states award their electoral votes?

The Constitution leaves the method to the states: each appoints its electors "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct."^[4] Today, every state uses the result of its popular vote in the November general election to decide which party's slate is appointed.^[2]

In 48 states and the District of Columbia, the rule is winner-take-all: the candidate who wins the state's popular vote receives all of its electoral votes.^[3][4] All 54 of California's electoral votes go to the state's winner even if the margin is only 50.1 percent to 49.9 percent.^[3]

Maine and Nebraska are the exceptions.^[2] In those two states, the ticket with the most votes statewide receives two electoral votes, and the ticket with the most votes in each congressional district receives one.^[4] This lets the two states divide their votes between candidates, as both did in 2020 and again in 2024.^[4][9]

What happens between Election Day and Inauguration Day?

The general election is held every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.^[1] Each state's executive then prepares a Certificate of Ascertainment showing who was appointed as its electors.^[1]

The electors meet on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December.^[1] They never gather as a single body: electors meet in their own states and vote for President and Vice President on separate ballots.^[1][4] Their votes are recorded on a Certificate of Vote, which is sent to Congress.^[1] A 2017 Congressional Research Service report gives the earlier rule, the Monday after the second Wednesday in December; the Electoral Count Reform Act, enacted in December 2022, changed the date.^[4][7]

On January 6, Congress counts the electoral votes in a joint session.^[1] The Vice President, as President of the Senate, presides over the count and announces the result.^[1] The President-elect is sworn in on January 20.^[1] For the 2024 election, the dates were November 5, 2024 (Election Day), December 17, 2024, January 6, 2025 and January 20, 2025.^[1]

What happens if no candidate wins 270 electoral votes?

Under the 12th Amendment, if no candidate has a majority of the electors, the House of Representatives chooses the President from the three candidates with the most electoral votes.^[5] Each state delegation has one vote, and a candidate needs at least 26 votes, a majority of the states.^[3][5] The District of Columbia, which is not a state, has no vote in that election.^[3] The Senate elects the Vice President from the two candidates with the most electoral votes; each senator casts one vote, and at least 51 votes are needed.^[3] If the House has not elected a President by Inauguration Day, the Vice President-elect serves as acting President until it does.^[3]

Only two presidential elections, those of 1800 and 1824, have been decided in the House.^[6] In the first, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in the electoral vote, and the House elected Jefferson; the 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804, was added to keep that problem from recurring.^[5][6] In the second, Andrew Jackson had the most electoral votes but not the required majority, and the House elected John Quincy Adams.^[6]

How can a candidate win the presidency but lose the popular vote?

The President is not chosen by a national popular vote; the electoral vote totals decide the winner.^[3] The Constitution's provisions on electing the President require a majority of electoral votes and make no reference to popular votes.^[7] Electoral votes are awarded state by state, so the vote totals in individual states and the national total can point to different winners.^[3]

The U.S. House of Representatives' history website lists five elections in which the winner of the popular vote lost: Andrew Jackson in 1824 (to John Quincy Adams), Samuel Tilden in 1876 (to Rutherford B. Hayes), Grover Cleveland in 1888 (to Benjamin Harrison), Al Gore in 2000 (to George W. Bush) and Hillary Clinton in 2016 (to Donald J. Trump).^[6] The National Archives cites the same five elections.^[3] A Congressional Research Service report from 2017 counts differently: it calls 2016 the fourth such election and names 1876, 1888 and 2000 as the earlier ones.^[7] The 1824 election differs from the rest because no candidate had an electoral majority and the House made the choice.^[6]

In 2016, official results from the Federal Election Commission show Clinton with 65,853,514 popular votes and Trump with 62,984,828, while Trump received 304 electoral votes and Clinton 227.^[8]