What Is the Electoral College?

The Electoral College is the process the Constitution uses to elect the president and vice president. Voters don’t vote for a candidate directly. In each state, they choose a slate of electors pledged to that candidate, and those electors, 538 in all, cast the votes that decide the presidency. A candidate needs a majority, 270, to win.

Where 538 comes from

Each state gets one elector for each member of its House delegation plus two for its senators: 435 plus 100. The 23rd Amendment, ratified in 1961, added three for the District of Columbia. House seats are reapportioned after every census, so states gain and lose electors every 10 years. The current allocation took effect in 2024 and stays in place for 2028; the next one, based on the 2030 census, takes effect in 2032. See each state’s total on our states page.

The Constitution never uses the phrase “Electoral College.” It refers only to electors; the term came into use later as a name for the system.

Why the Framers chose electors

Delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention weighed having Congress choose the president, which threatened his independence, against a national popular vote, which small states and Southern slave states opposed. In September 1787, a committee of eleven delegates proposed electors as a compromise, and the convention wrote it into Article II, Section 1.

Under the original rules, each elector voted for two people, at least one of them from outside the elector’s own state. The candidate with the most votes, if he had a majority, became president; the runner-up became vice president. That system made political rivals John Adams and Thomas Jefferson president and vice president in 1796. In 1800 it produced a tie between Jefferson and his own running mate, Aaron Burr, and the House needed 36 ballots to choose Jefferson. The 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804, gave electors separate votes for president and vice president and cemented the modern party ticket.

Who the electors are

Members of Congress and anyone holding federal office are barred from serving as electors. Beyond that, states and parties decide. Each party nominates its own slate, usually loyal activists, state officials and party leaders, through a state convention, a party committee or another method set by state law. (See how electors are chosen.) When you vote for a ticket in November, you’re choosing its slate.

How states award their electors

The Constitution leaves that to each state legislature. In the early elections, many legislatures simply picked the electors themselves. By 1832, every state except South Carolina let voters choose.

Today, 48 states and D.C. award all their electors to the statewide popular vote winner. Maine (since 1972) and Nebraska (since 1992) give two electors to the statewide winner and one to the winner of each congressional district. Each has split its votes three times.

The calendar

• Election Day (Nov. 7, 2028): Voters choose electors.
• Certification: Each state’s governor certifies the winning slate. Under the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022, the certificate is due at least six days before the electors meet.
• Electors vote (the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December; Dec. 19, 2028): Electors meet in their state capitals and cast separate ballots for president and vice president.
• Congress counts (Jan. 6): A joint session, with the vice president presiding, opens and counts the certificates.
• Inauguration (Jan. 20).

Most states require electors to vote for the candidates they’re pledged to, and the Supreme Court upheld those laws in 2020. Electors who break their pledge are called faithless electors.

Counting the votes in Congress

Two tellers from each chamber read out each state’s results. Under the Electoral Count Reform Act, the vice president’s role is solely ministerial: the presiding officer can’t accept or reject electors. An objection to a state’s votes must be signed by at least one-fifth of the members of both the House and the Senate, and it succeeds only if both chambers vote to sustain it.

Before 2022, one member of each chamber could force a debate. That happened after the 2004 election, over Ohio, and on Jan. 6, 2021, over Arizona and Pennsylvania. Every objection was rejected.

If no one wins 270 electoral votes, the House picks the president, with each state delegation casting one vote.

When the Electoral College and popular vote split

Five presidents have taken office without winning the popular vote:

• 1824: Andrew Jackson led in both the popular and electoral vote but fell short of an electoral majority in a four-way race. The House chose John Quincy Adams.
• 1876: Samuel Tilden won the popular vote, but returns from Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina, plus one Oregon elector, were disputed. A 15-member Electoral Commission awarded all 20 contested electoral votes to Rutherford B. Hayes, who won 185 to 184 days before the inauguration.
• 1888: Benjamin Harrison won the Electoral College while President Grover Cleveland won the popular vote.
• 2000: George W. Bush won after the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore halted Florida’s recount with him ahead there by 537 votes. Al Gore won the national popular vote.
• 2016: Donald Trump won the Electoral College; Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by about 2.9 million votes.

The debate

Supporters say the Electoral College makes candidates build broad geographic coalitions, protects the influence of smaller states and keeps recounts contained within individual states. Critics say it can override the national popular vote, gives disproportionate weight to small states and focuses campaigns on a handful of battleground states. Abolishing it would require a constitutional amendment. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact tries to reach a similar result through state law.