What is the Electoral College? How does it work?

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have spent months traveling the country on the 2024 presidential election campaign trail, vying for America’s vote to move into the White House.

With every new presidential election cycle, U.S. citizens ask themselves the same question, keeping in mind the power of the Electoral College: “Does my vote count?”

Local and state officials elected into office in the U.S. are able to do so by winning the popular vote. However, the President of the United States is selected with the help of the Electoral College and the popular vote.

In order to win the White House, a candidate must receive at least 270 electoral votes.  (Soeren Stache/picture alliance via Getty Images)

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Most often, the popular vote and the electoral vote mirror each other, but there are few instances in history when the two have differed. Most recently, in 2016, Trump won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.

What is the Electoral College?

The Electoral College is the formal process in which the President and Vice President of the United States are elected into office.

“The Electoral College, as we know it, was created by the 12th Amendment of the Constitution, which was ratified in 1804. Today, there are a total of 538 electoral votes, and a candidate needs at least 270 to win,” Fox News’ Todd Piro explained on “Fox and Friends” in November 2020. 

In the Electoral College, Washington D.C. has its own three electors. 

In 48 states, plus Washington D.C., the winner of the popular vote gets all the electoral votes for that state, according to USA.gov. This is apart from Maine and Nebraska, where a proportional system is used, per the source.

In 2016, Donald Trump was elected president after winning the electoral vote, but losing the popular vote to his democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.  (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

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How does the Electoral College work?

While the popular vote takes place in November, the electoral vote doesn’t take place until about a month later, in mid-December. 

Who is chosen as a state’s electors, how they are chosen and when they are picked vary state-by-state, but there is a two-part system in place, according to the National Archive’s website.

Slates of electors are chosen at state party conventions, or they are voted on by the party’s central committee based on state or national party rules.

During a general election, voters across the states cast their ballots to select their electors who will represent their decesion in the presidential election. The names of electors may or may not appear on the ballots.

Electors pledge to vote for specific candidates, though they are not legally obligated to do so. While there is no federal law in place for electors to vote a certain way, penalties, like being disqualified from future ballots, are in place.

Through the years, there have been many calls made to change the Electoral College as we know it. 

Vice president Kamala Harris became the presidential nominee for the Democratic Party after Joe Biden dropped out of the race.  (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

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“Over the years, there have been hundreds of proposed amendments to change the Electoral College, but only one has gotten remotely close to being passed after the 1968 presidential election saw Richard Nixon win against Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace,” Piro said. “A 1969 bill to replace the Electoral College with the popular vote passed in the House of Representatives, and though it was endorsed by Nixon, the bill eventually died in the Senate after it was filibustered, and it still stands today.”

Recently, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called for the elimination of the Electoral College altogether. 

“I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go,” he said at a California fundraising event in October, according to a pool report at the event, Bloomberg reported. “We need a national popular vote, but that’s not the world we live in.”

In order to do away with the system created by the Founding Fathers, a major constitutional change would need to be made.