How the Electoral College Actually Works

The 2024 presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris comes to a head Tuesday on Election Day. The winner won’t be decided by the number of votes cast in their favor but by a group of 538 people that make up the Electoral College.

“When you go vote for President, you do not vote for President,” says William Field, political science professor at Rutgers University. Instead, you are voting for that party’s electors, who typically cast a vote in favor of the presidential candidate that wins the most votes in that state.

It's a process that dates back centuries and has proven controversial, particularly in instances when a candidate wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College. Most recently, Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election despite earning nearly 3 million votes less overall, marking the fifth time in U.S. history that a candidate has become President without winning the most votes. 

Sixty-three percent of Americans say that they would prefer it if the winner of the presidential election were decided by the popular vote, according to a Pew Research Center 2024 report, though there are partisan divides. Eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent voters are in favor of abolishing the Electoral College compared to 46% of Republicans. 

Despite the more than 700 proposals introduced in Congress to reform or get rid of the Electoral College, according to the National Archives, it remains in place today. 

So how does the Electoral College work? 

Under the Electoral College, all 50 states and the District of Columbia are allocated a certain number of electoral votes equal to their two senators and their number of representatives. Since representatives are based on the population of a state, that means larger states, like California and Texas, have the highest number of electoral votes at 54 and 40. Five states—Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming—have the least electoral votes at three. The election is essentially decided state-by-state. If a candidate wins the popular vote in a state, typically, they receive all of the states electoral college votes—even if the race is close.

But in Maine and Nebraska, there are split electoral votes, which means two electoral votes are given to the state’s popular vote winner, and then one electoral vote goes out to the popular vote winner per congressional district. 

How many votes you need to win

In total, there are 538 electors who will cast a vote in favor of a particular presidential candidate. In order to win the presidential election, candidates must receive a majority of the possible 538 votes, or at least 270 votes. 

After voters cast their ballots on Election Day, races are eventually called in every state, with the first results starting to come in on Election Day. States have until Dec. 10 to finalize any disputes or finish recounts over the results. On Dec. 17, electors meet to cast their ballots for President. The copies of the ballots are then sent to the president of the U.S. Senate, or Vice President to officially be counted. On Jan. 6, Congress meets to count the electoral votes and certify victory for the candidate who has received at least 270.

If no presidential candidate gets 270 votes, then Congress will elect the President and Vice President. Each state’s House representatives will cast a ballot in favor of one candidate. In this scenario, a candidate must earn at least 26 votes to win the presidency. The Senate elects the Vice President. Each Senator casts one vote for a vice presidential candidate, and whoever receives 51 votes will be elected. If the House of Representatives does not elect a president by Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, then the Vice-President elect becomes the interim President until the House comes to a decision.

Why we have the Electoral College 

The rules for the Electoral College are outlined in the 12th Amendment of the Constitution. Because democracy was a new idea at the time, says Field, the nation’s founders thought it would be best to have the states elect a President rather than voters directly. 

This decision was part of the checks and balances system prevalent throughout the American political system, but it also reflected the Founding Fathers’ lack of trust in voters, says John Sacher, a history professor at the University of Central Florida.

“They wanted property owning white men to vote,” he says. “They wanted to make sure that people were virtuous who voted. They were concerned that if you allow the people too much power, that the people might choose poorly.”

The logistics at the time also made it more difficult to get people to cast their ballot during a period with reduced and slower transportation, lower literacy rates, and limited opportunities for education. In fact, it was not until the election of 1824 that eligible voters, not just electors, cast a ballot for the next leader of the U.S.  

Read More: The Debate That Gave Us the Electoral College

Slavery also played a role in the establishment of the Electoral College when delegates to the 1787 constitutional convention agreed on the so-called three-fifths compromise in determining representation in the House. “In order to distribute the number of congressional seats and therefore the electoral votes, they would count an enslaved person as three-fifths of a human being,” says Field. “They couldn't vote, but it boosted the seeming population of those states that had large numbers of lay people.” This made it so that those in the North would not wield significantly more power than those in the South, where many people remained enslaved. 

How is an elector selected? 

Electors are selected by each political party, but the guidelines vary by state. Guidelines that apply to all states include that no senator, representative, or person who holds an “office of trust or profit in the U.S.” can be an elector. State officials who have previously held an “insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given aid and comfort to its enemies” are also disqualified. 

What happens if an elector goes rogue 

While electors often vote for the presidential candidate they have pledged to vote for, sometimes “faithless electors,” do not do so. In 2016, seven electors went rogue—the most since 1972, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Thirty-five states and D.C. have laws against faithless electors. Violation of these laws could lead to fines or elector disqualification depending on the state. In New Mexico and South Carolina, faithless electors could face a criminal penalty. But, these faithless actors have never changed the outcome of an election.