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Electoral College

SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK: ELECTORAL COLLEGE

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What is the Electoral College?

The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The Founding Fathers established it in the Constitution, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.

What is the process?

The Electoral College process consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress.

How many electors are there? How are they distributed among the States?

The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your State has the same number of electors as it does Members in its Congressional delegation: one for each Member in the House of Representatives plus two Senators. Read more about the allocation of electoral votes.

The District of Columbia is allocated 3 electors and treated like a State for purposes of the Electoral College under the 23rd Amendment of the Constitution. For this reason, in the following discussion, the word “State” also refers to the District of Columbia and “Executive” to the State Governors and the Mayor of the District of Columbia.

How are my electors chosen? What are their qualifications? How do they decide who to vote for?

Each candidate running for President in your State has their own group of electors (known as a slate). The slates are generally chosen by the candidate’s political party in your State, but State laws vary on how the electors are selected and what their responsibilities are. Read more about the qualifications of the electors and restrictions on who the electors may vote for.

What happens in the general election? Why should I vote?

The general election is held every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. When you vote for a Presidential candidate you are actually voting for your candidate's preferred electors. Learn more about voting for the electors.

Most States have a “winner-take-all” system that awards all electors to the Presidential candidate who wins the State's popular vote. However, Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of “proportional representation.” Read more about the allocation of electors among the States.

What happens after the general election?

After the general election, your State's Executive prepares a Certificate of Ascertainment listing the names of all the individuals on the slates for each candidate. The Certificate of Ascertainment also lists the number of votes each individual received and shows which individuals were appointed as your State's electors. Your State’s Certificate of Ascertainment is sent to NARA as part of the official records of the Presidential election.

The meeting of the electors takes place on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December after the general election. The electors meet in their respective States, where they cast their votes for President and Vice President on separate ballots. Your State’s electors’ votes are recorded on a Certificate of Vote, which is prepared at the meeting by the electors. Your State’s Certificate of Vote is sent to Congress, where the votes are counted, and to NARA, as part of the official records of the Presidential election.

Each State’s electoral votes are counted in a joint session of Congress on the 6th of January in the year following the meeting of the electors. Members of the House and Senate meet in the House Chamber to conduct the official count of electoral votes. The Vice President of the United States, as President of the Senate, presides over the count in a strictly ministerial manner and announces the results of the vote. The President of the Senate then declares which persons, if any, have been elected President and Vice President of the United States.

The President-elect takes the oath of office and is sworn in as President of the United States on January 20th in the year following the general election.

Source:
https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/about


 

Distribution of Electoral Votes

Allocation among the States

Electoral votes are allocated among the States based on the Census. Every State is allocated a number of votes equal to the number of Senators and Representatives in its U.S. Congressional delegation—two votes for its Senators in the U.S. Senate plus a number of votes equal to the number of its Congressional districts.

Under the 23rd Amendment of the Constitution, the District of Columbia is allocated three electors and treated like a State for purposes of the Electoral College.

Each State (which includes the District of Columbia for the Electoral College) decides how to appoint its electors; however, they must do so according to law enacted before Election Day. Currently all States use the popular vote results from the November general election to decide which political party chooses the individuals who are appointed

Allocation within each State

All States, except for Maine and Nebraska, have a winner-take-all policy where the State looks only at the overall winner of the state-wide popular vote.  Maine and Nebraska, however, appoint individual electors based on the winner of the popular vote within each Congressional district and then 2 "at-large" electors based on the winner of the overall state-wide popular vote. 

While it is rare for Maine or Nebraska to have a split vote, each has done so twice: Nebraska in 2008, Maine in 2016, and both Maine and Nebraska in 2020.

Current allocations

The allocations below are based on the 2020 Census. They are effective for the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections.

Total Electoral Votes:  538;   Majority Needed to Elect:  270

Alabama - 9 votes

Kentucky - 8 votes

North Dakota - 3 votes

Alaska - 3 votes

Louisiana - 8 votes

Ohio - 17 votes

Arizona - 11 votes

Maine - 4 votes

Oklahoma - 7 votes

Arkansas - 6 votes

Maryland - 10 votes

Oregon - 8 votes

California - 54 votes

Massachusetts - 11 votes

Pennsylvania - 19 votes

Colorado - 10 votes

Michigan - 15 votes

Rhode Island - 4 votes

Connecticut - 7 votes

Minnesota - 10 votes

South Carolina - 9 votes

Delaware - 3 votes

Mississippi - 6 votes

South Dakota - 3 votes

District of Columbia - 3 votes

Missouri - 10 votes

Tennessee - 11 votes

Florida - 30 votes

Montana - 4 votes

Texas - 40 votes

Georgia - 16 votes

Nebraska - 5 votes

Utah - 6 votes

Hawaii - 4 votes

Nevada - 6 votes

Vermont - 3 votes

Idaho - 4 votes

New Hampshire - 4 votes

Virginia - 13 votes

Illinois - 19 votes

New Jersey - 14 votes

Washington - 12 votes

Indiana - 11 votes

New Mexico - 5 votes

West Virginia - 4 votes

Iowa - 6 votes

New York - 28 votes

Wisconsin - 10 votes

Kansas - 6 votes

North Carolina - 16 votes

Wyoming - 3 votes

 

Source:
https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/allocation

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