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The Electoral College

What is it?
Why do we have it?
How does it operate?
Are there alternatives to it?

The Electoral College is the mechanism devised by the Framers of the US Constitution to select the President.  It is described in Article II, sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Constitution, with section 2 replaced by the 12th Amendment, which itself was modified by the 20th Amendment.

The Electoral College exists because the Framers were divided, not only over how the President should be selected, but also whether to have a President at all.  Under the first US “constitution”, the Articles of Confederation, there was no head of an executive branch; the leader of Congress served as titular president.  During the Constitutional Convention, there were delegates who argued against creating a chief executive, but the vast majority favored such an office because the absence of a chief executive weakened the government.  Considerable time was spent debating the office’s powers as well as the method of selection.  Among the alternatives discussed were direct election by the people (rejected because many delegates feared that a demagogue could attain power by deceiving voters), election by Congress (rejected because this method violated the separation of powers principle) and election by federal judges (rejected as too elitist).  The Electoral College was, therefore, a compromise mechanism.  As discussed below, it allowed for the people’s voice to be heard but filtered through the Electors, whose experience and character would assure that the best person would become president.  Some historians and political scientists also contend that including the Electoral College assured the support of the southern states.  Except for Virginia, they had smaller populations than those in the north.  The three-fifth compromise,1 however, gave southern states a larger voice in the presidential selection process by counting slaves as people, though slaves lacked the rights and privileges of citizens.

Each state receives Electors equal to its number of Representatives, which is based on the state’s population, and its Senators.  For example, Pennsylvania currently has 17 Representatives and 2 Senators, so the Commonwealth has 19 Electors.  States are permitted to choose how it awards its Electors to the presidential candidate that is victorious in the state.  Over the nation’s first forty years, a tradition developed by which states awarded all their Electors to the candidate who won the most votes in the state.  Only two states, Maine, beginning in 1972, and Nebraska, starting in 1991, assign their Electors differently.  Both award an electoral vote to the candidate that wins a congressional district (Maine has two, while Nebraska has five), with the remaining two electoral votes given to the candidate that wins the most statewide votes. 

The states are also empowered to decide who serves as their Electors.  All states permit the political parties running presidential candidates in their states to select their Electors.  If a party’s candidate wins, then that party’s Electors cast their electoral votes.  Article 2 of the Constitution stipulates that no federal elected or appointed official, or person “holding an office of trust or profit under the United States” shall be an Elector.  It’s considered an honor to serve as an Elector, and the parties traditionally choose people who have been loyal party members.  Electors are required by law to cast their votes for the candidate who won the state’s popular vote in 37 states;2 however, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and West Virginia have no such laws.  An Elector who fails to cast a vote for the winning candidate is labeled a “faithless elector.”

The Electors are required to meet in each state’s capital to cast their votes on the Tuesday following the second Wednesday in December.  On the fourth Wednesday in December, the electoral votes from all the states must be received by the Vice President, who serves as president of the Senate.  In joint session, the Congress, with the Vice President presiding, the votes are officially counted.3

Should no candidate receive a majority of electoral votes (currently 270), the House takes the top three voting-getting candidates and proceeds to vote by state until a candidate receives 26 votes.  Under this procedure, each state’s congressional delegation first votes to decide how it will cast its state’s lone vote.  Should a tie vote occur, the state must continue voting until the tie is broken.  The Senate elects the Vice President from among the top two vote-getters, with each Senator casting a separate vote; a majority of the Senate, 51 votes, is necessary to win.  The president has twice been elected by the House: 1800 and 1824.

Replacing the Electoral College requires amending the Constitution, which is unlikely to happen in the near term.  Any attempt to move to direct election would be opposed by states with small populations as they would become much less important to presidential candidates.  One attempt at reform currently underway is The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC).  A compact is an agreement among a group of U.S.  states to coordinate their efforts to solve a common problem.4  It must be approved by Congress.  Under the NPVIC, state legislatures and the District of Columbia can vote to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate receives the most popular votes in the national election.  The Compact was proposed in 2006.  As of January 2025, 17 states and the District of Columbia had voted to join it; they represent 209 electoral votes, or 39% of the Electoral College and 77% of the 270 votes needed to give the compact legal force.  In American history, only in the 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 presidential elections did the president win an Electoral College majority while not winning the popular vote.  Constitutional scholars are divided over whether the NPVIC is constitutional, but politically it is unlikely to receive the support of enough states to trigger the Compact’s enforcement.

  1. The three-fifth compromise is found in Article I, section 2, clause 3 of the Constitution.  For purposes of taxation and counting the population on which House seats are assigned, slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person.  This gave states with large slave populations larger numbers of Representatives than they would otherwise have had.
  2. On July 6, 2020, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Chiafalo v. Washington that states may punish or replace presidential electors who refuse to cast their ballots for the candidate chosen by the voters of their state.
  3. The Electoral Count Act of 1887 described the mechanics of counting; after the events of January 6, 2020, however, Congress passed the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2020, which, among other changes, eliminated the possibility of “failed Electors,” clarified the role of the Vice President, made it more difficult for lawmakers to challenge the count, and provided a role for federal courts to move the counting along should difficulties arise.
  4. The Compact Clause may be found in Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution.

Additional Information

For even more information, see  Baldino, Thomas J. and Kreier, Kyle L.,  Of the People, By the People, For the People: A Documentary Record of Voting Rights and Electoral Reforms, 2 volumes. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press, 2010.

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