The Electoral College is a voting process established by the Founding Fathers and written in the Constitution. Through this process, electors vote for president and vice president. This system was a compromise between electing a president based on a Congressional vote and electing a president based on a popular vote.

WHY IT MATTERS

Given America’s global role, the office of the president of the United States is one of the most powerful positions in the world. Ensuring that the system that selects the president is fair and consistent is paramount to our democracy. This process must respect the balance of power among the branches of the federal government, the states, and between the state and federal governments.

Additionally, it is essential to our democracy that voters understand how the presidential election system works and how their votes are counted.

So, where did the idea come from, and how does it work?

Delegates at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 faced a difficult decision: how should the fledgling nation, composed of 13 states of different sizes and diverse opinions about government power, elect a president?

The Constitution Center refers to the Electoral College as “the fourth national institution created by the Constitution.”

DID YOU KNOW?

The delegates rejected the idea of a president chosen by Congress or state legislatures. They all risked harming federal authority and upsetting the balance of power among branches of government. They also rejected an election by a direct popular vote out of fear that some voters would lack access to information about all viable candidates, leading them to only vote for those from their state or region.

An indirect election aligned Congressional representation among the states was the best option for the Framers. This option was approved in September 1787 and incorporated into the Constitution. Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2 and 3specify that the Electoral College chooses the president. Each state appoints and has a specific number of electors.

Initially, the Electoral College was meant to “govern the entirety of the process of selecting the president and vice president, from the initial function of identifying and winnowing the candidates to the final stage of electing these officers.” Today, the Electoral College comes into play at the end of the election cycle, with parties, state laws, and primaries conducting primaries.

AMENDMENTS

The Electoral College has been modified twice in our nation’s history. After the electors cast an equal number of votes for Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr in the election of 1800, Congress ratified the 12th Amendment in 1803. This amendment mandates that electors cast at least one vote and specify that vote as being for either president or vice president. In 1961, the 23rd Amendment allocated three electoral votes to the District of Columbia and authorized its treatment as a state in the Electoral College.

On December 29, 2022, President Biden signed the Electoral Count Reform (ECA). By signing this bill, the president hoped to improve the Electoral Count Act of 1887 by offering more guidance on electoral vote counting and solving election disputes. The bill covers what Congress does once electors have been sent forward from the states, sets the standard for when they can object to a slate of electors, clarifies that the vice president has a “solely ministerial” role, and calls for Congress to defer to the state-determined states. The ECA also addresses how the states can send forward an elector, stating that this job falls into the hands of a state executive. Lastly, the bill requires a “security feature” on the document identifying the state’s electors. In light of this bill, state legislators will likely examine their state laws around selecting and sending forward presidential electors.

For a recap of the history of the Electoral College, see this Kite & Key Media video (8 min).

ELECTORS

The Electoral College aligns with the Congressional representation system. Since 1964, there have been 538 electors to match the total number of members of the U.S. House of Representatives (435), the total number of U.S. Senators (100), and the three votes issued to the District of Columbia. Each state has the same number of electors as members of Congress: one elector for each Representative in the House, plus two more votes for two Senators. To be elected president, a candidate must win the majority of the 538 possible electoral votes (at least 270).

WHO CAN BE AN ELECTOR?

According to Article II, section 1, clause 2, no Senator, Representative, or person holding “an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States” can be an elector. Essentially, anyone not currently having an official federal office position is eligible. Other than that, there are few provisions relating to qualifications for electors.

HOW ARE ELECTORS CHOSEN?

Until the mid-1800s, state legislatures selected the electors. Today, they are chosen through a popular vote in a two-step process. In the first step,  electors are chosen by political parties in each state. During the spring and summer before the general election, each party in every state nominates electors either at state party conventions or by a central committee vote, depending on the state party rules. These individuals are usually state party leaders, consistent party members, or locally elected officials with “personal or political affiliation with their party’s presidential candidate.” By the end of this step, each presidential candidate has a set of potential electors called a slate. Each state has a slate of electors for each recognized political party with presidential and vice presidential candidates who appear on the ballot.

When you vote for a Presidential candidate, you aren’t actually voting for President: “You are telling your State which candidate you want your State to vote for at the meeting of electors.” General election results are used to appoint electors.”

DID YOU KNOW?

The second step happens during the general election in November when voters cast their ballots for their chosen presidential candidate. In reality, they are voting to select their state’s electors. In 48 states, the voters appoint the electors associated with the winning candidate as the state’s electors in a winner-take-all system; thus, if a majority of voters in a state vote for Candidate X, they choose Candidate X’s slate of electors.

The process differs slightly in Nebraska and Maine, where the system is not winner-take-all. Instead, candidates receive one elector for each congressional district they win, and the state popular vote winner gets the final two electors. This method creates multiple popular vote contests that could lead to a split electoral vote in the presidential election. For example, in the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama won one district in Nebraska, and John McCain won two districts and the statewide vote.

HOW DO ELECTORS VOTE?

Potential electors vote like everyone else in the November general election, as they are not electors yet. They are essentially “voting for themselves to be electors” in the general election. After tallying the votes, each state has a meeting of the electors (usually the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December), where the electors directly vote for the president and vice president. These ballots are sent to:

• The president of the Senate (the vice president of the U.S.)
• The state’s secretary of state
• The National Archives and Records Administration
• The judge presiding over the district in which the electors meet

On January 6th, following the election and meeting of electors, each state’s electoral votes are counted in a joint session of Congress. If no candidate receives at least 270 for a majority, the House of Representatives elects the president. Each state delegation gets one vote to cast for president.

Nothing in the Constitution mandates electors to vote according to the state’s popular vote results. Some states require electors to do so or be subject to fines, disqualified, or replaced. Some parties may “extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties’ nominees.” For example, faithless electors in Michigan are treated as if they had resigned and are replaced;Oklahoma imposes a civil penalty of a $1,000 fine on faithless electors; in New Mexico, a faithless vote is considered a felony. In the history of the Electoral College, very few electors have disregarded the popular vote, and no elector has been prosecuted for being “faithless” or failing to vote as pledged. However, several electors were replaced and sued for failing to vote for Hillary Clinton as they had pledged in the 2016 election.

RELATIONSHIP TO THE CENSUS

Congressional apportionment is how the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are divided among all 50 states. Reapportionment of congressional districts across the country is based on results from the decennial Census and the United States population count. Since the Electoral College aligns with congressional representation, a direct, one-to-one relationship exists between congressional representation and electoral votes. Therefore, when reapportionment leads to losses and gains in Congressional representation across the states, these states also lose or gain electoral votes. For more, see The Policy Circle’s Decennial Census Deep Dive.

This map illustrates the electoral votes for the 2024 presidential election broken down by party and state.

As the Electoral College is a part of our Constitution, many respect it as a fundamental part of our country and believe it should not be changed. Others argue that the national popular vote winner should always be the election winner. Although, on the whole, this has been a rare occurrence in our nation’s history, the fact that it has happened twice in the past two decades has brought the Electoral College to the forefront of election debates.

Supporters of the Electoral College assert it preserves “an important dimension of state-based federalism in our presidential elections,” presenting a good balance of federal and state powers. As the Constitution states, the Electoral College allows states to conduct their elections without affecting other states. Proponents of this view see a guarantee that there will be national support for the president. Further, a national popular vote would give the most populous states the majority of the electoral power. The White House would be largely determined by voters in major metropolitan cities, giving little attention to smaller, more rural areas.

In the United States, rural areas account for 97% of the country’s land area, but are home to less than 20% of he population. New York City is home to more people (8.8 million) than Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas combined (8 million).

DID YOU KNOW?

Varying geographical locations have differing policy concerns and often support varying political parties. It is essential to our democracy that all voices are heard regardless of location, and the election system must ensure that the needs of all communities are accounted for.

Similar to arguments against a national popular vote that would give too much power to largely populated states and regions, critics of the Electoral College argue the system reduces “the real field of play to fewer than a dozen ‘swing states.” Swing states have a significant number of electors, and they often switch between political parties. Other arguments maintain that the Electoral College is outdated. Part of the Founding Fathers’ concern with a national popular vote was that voters would simply choose candidates from their region because they would have the most information about those candidates. In today’s digital world, voters have much easier access to information about other candidates, and candidates have more access to voters across the country.

This video from TED-ex explains more (10 min):

Occasionally, the Electoral College produces controversial elections. For example, in the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr were both on the Democratic-Republican ticket and received the same number of electoral votes. Eventually, the House of Representatives made the final decision and selected Jefferson. This election also prompted the 12th Amendment, which mandates double balloting, meaning that the Electoral College now casts two separate votes, one for vice president and one for president.

The next dilemma occurred in the election of 1824, the first time the popular vote winner did not become the president. All four candidates, Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay, received electoral votes, but more was needed for a majority. Again, the House of Representatives made the final decision, which brought Quincy Adams to the White House despite Jackson having won the popular vote.

A similar phenomenon occurred in the 1876 election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden. Over 3% of the popular vote went to Tilden, but nineteen electoral votes were contested. A commission of five senators, five members of Congress, and five Supreme Court Justices awarded all nineteen votes to Hayes.

Since these elections, neither the House of Representatives nor an independent commission has been necessary; if nothing else, the Electoral College is decisive. Only a few elections have ended with the winner of the popular vote not also winning the Electoral College vote. In 1888, Grover Cleveland won the popular vote, but Benjamin Harrison won the Electoral College majority. In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote by .5%, but George W. Bush won the Electoral College by five votes. Again, in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1% while Donald Trump won the Electoral College by seventy-seven votes.

POTENTIAL REFORMS

Several reforms circulate frequently between policy professionals and activists. The most prominent reforms involve restricting or abolishing the Electoral College altogether.

STATE-BASED REFORMS

Proposals to change the system have been made within the states since the Constitution gives states control over how to award their electoral votes.

Many states have proposed reform bills, switching from the winner-takes-all system of 48 states to the district system of Maine and Nebraska. The argument is that the winner-takes-all system gives too much power to the swing states; a candidate can amass a significant portion of electoral votes by focusing on a few key areas in these states. Awarding electoral votes by district could possibly offer a more even distribution of votes. None of these proposals have ever passed in the states, but that doesn’t mean the debates about the Electoral College have settled.

ABOLISHMENT

The most extreme option of abolishing the Electoral College would require a Constitutional amendment, which needs support from two-thirds of the House and Senate and three-fourths of the states. The Electoral College has come close to being abolished before.

This argument maintains that the recent disparities between the national popular vote and the winner of the electoral vote will go from being a rare occurrence to a persistent problem. This will contribute to doubt in the election system.

They have the same view on faithless electors and think that the ambiguous response to them is a strong objection. They have continued to escape consequences for not voting as their represented population would have them.

Lastly, proponents think the Electoral College over represents smaller states that do not contribute significantly to the gross domestic product. This creates an imbalance of power that does not mirror economic reality. Critics of this might argue that the protection of the minority is part of what the Constitution was trying to achieve in its setup of the House of Representatives, Senate, and the Electoral College to prevent the tyranny of the majority.

In 2023, one poll found a majority of Americans wanted to get rid of the Electoral College and replace it with a system where the candidate with the most votes wins.

THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE

The National Popular Vote plan (NPV) is a workaround to the challenges that come with abolishment to produce significant change to the Electoral College. The NPV proceeds by having states sign an agreement that requires them to appoint their elector slate based on the winner of the broader national vote instead of the winner of the state vote or a smaller jurisdiction.

For example, if X Candidate won the popular vote in California, but Y Candidate won the national popular vote, California would be required to send the electors of Y Candidate to its meeting of electors. As of April 15, 2024, 18 states have passed the bill into law, a total of 209 electoral votes. For now, this measure will not affect elections in those states; the National Popular Vote (NPV) bill will only go into effect when enacted into law. It would need to be adopted by enough states that the combined total of electoral votes is 270.

The power of states to award electoral cotes was solidified in McPherson v. Blacker in 1892, when the Court maintained “the appointment and mode of appointment of electors belong exclusively to the states under the Constitution of the United States.”

DID YOU KNOW?

Critics argue the NPV would take away the state-based power of the Electoral College. Many believe the constitutionality of the NPV is also questionable. They maintain that states only have the power to enter such a compact with Congressional approval. Still, Congress can only approve the NPV with a Constitutional amendment since the Electoral College is part of the Constitution.

Those in favor of the NPV plan claim it would guarantee the Electoral College winner as the popular vote winner. They argue that “every part of the Union would attract political investment and campaigning” rather than only a few key states with many electoral votes. Since the states have the constitutional power to form interstate compacts, they do not view the plan as unconstitutional. They also argue that each state’s winner-takes-all electoral vote method is not in the Constitution.

In the Federalist Papers,  Alexander Hamilton wrote that “the Constitution is designed to ensure “that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” The Founding Fathers tried to ensure this by incorporating the Electoral College into the Constitution, and it has held as a key part of our nation’s democracy for over two centuries. However, several historic and recent elections have proven that a candidate can win the popular vote without winning the presidency. Finding the proper balance of voter, state, and federal power in elections is not an easy task, but it is one that our country will continue to debate to protect our democracy and ensure all voices are heard.

Measure: Find out what your state and district are doing about the Electoral College.

• Do you know how many electors your state has?
• Where does your state stand on the Electoral College or a National Popular Vote?
• How does your state handle “faithless electors”?

Identify: Who are the influencers in your state, county, or community? Learn about their priorities and consider how to contact them, including elected officials, the attorney general, law enforcement, education boards, city councils, journalists, media outlets, community organizations, and local businesses.

• Who can be an elector in your state?
• What steps have the appointed or elected officials in your state/community taken so far?

Reach Out: You are a catalyst. Finding a common cause is a great opportunity to develop relationships with people who may be outside of your immediate network. All it takes is a small team of two or three people to set a path for real improvement. The Policy Circle is your platform to convene with the experts you want to hear from.

• Find allies in your community, nearby towns, and throughout your state.
• Foster collaborative relationships with community organizations.

Plan: Set some milestones based on your state’s legislative calendar.

Don’t hesitate to contact The Policy Circle team at [email protected] for connections to the broader network, insights on how to build rapport with policymakers, and advice on establishing yourself as a civic leader.

Execute: Give it your best shot. You can:

• Apply for The Policy Circle’s CLER Program to join a community of like-minded women learning better skills to be effective business and civic leaders in their communities.
• Re-familiarize yourself with the constitutional background of the Electoral College, including the 12th and 23rdAmendments.
• Explore the distribution of electors across the country.
  • Investigate the math behind the Electoral College with this interactive projection map.
• Find out if and how schools in your district explain the Electoral College in a government or civics class.
  • See if there are opportunities with local organizations or district schools to engage with young and new voters on the subject. Consider volunteering or becoming a mentor.
• Working with others, you may create something great for your community. Here are some tools to learn how to contact your representatives and write an op-ed.

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

• National Archives: The Electoral College
• 270 to Win Presidential Election Interactive Map
• National Council of State Legislatures: The Electoral College
• National Association of Secretaries of State: State Laws Regarding Presidential Electors

VOTING

• See The Policy Circle’s Election Series for more about voting and elections
• 270 to Win provides election news for the Presidency, the Senate, the House, and elections at the state level.
• FiveThirtyEight (from ABC) tracks recent political news and polls.
• Bill of Rights Institute Think the Vote provides resources to help voters understand issues and elections and engage in healthy civil discourse.
• Vote.org provides “everything you need to vote,” from information on election calendars and timetables to voter ID laws and absentee ballot rules.