How the electoral college works
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College in the U.S. Constitution as an organized body of electors who, together, vote for the president and vice president.
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Out of the 538 electors within the Electoral College, 270 electoral votes are needed to elect a candidate, according to the National Archives. Each state receives a certain number of electoral votes based on data from the most recent census: one vote for each of the state’s two senators, and one for every state representative in the House, the Committee on the Budget explains. The District of Columbia is treated like a U.S. state and receives three electors within the Electoral College; click here to see a chart of allocations effective for the 2020 presidential election, as provided by the National Archives.
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Citizens at the polls are voting for the electors appointed by the individual states’ political parties, rather than directly voting for their chosen candidate; in other words, “on Election Day, we’re electing the electors who elect the president,” New York Times writer Jonah Engel Bromwich elaborates. In December, electors from 48 of the 50 states travel to their state capitals representing the parties that won the popular vote in each state. For these states, whichever candidate wins the popular vote receives all of the electoral votes for that given state, according to the National Archives. This would mean, for example, that if the Republican candidate wins the popular vote in Texas, which distributes 38 electoral votes, then that candidate would win all 38 of those votes. Maine and Nebraska, however, distribute two electoral votes to the party that won the popular vote, while the rest of the electoral votes go to whichever party won the popular vote in each congressional district.
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In some cases, as with the 2016 presidential election, a candidate may lose the popular vote – meaning citizens cast more ballots for the opposing candidate – but win the overall election by winning over more states, or states with larger numbers of electoral votes. This is why a candidate like Hillary Clinton in 2016 may lose the election to a candidate like Donald Trump, who lost the popular vote but received the majority in the Electoral College. Without the Electoral College, presidential candidates would likely only run in states with the largest populations and the most support for their parties. Therefore, the Electoral College protects smaller states, like Rhode Island, and states with smaller populations, like Alaska, whose votes the candidates would otherwise disregard. The College guarantees that every vote matters and is recognized during the presidential election.
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TED-Ed's video, "Does your vote count? The Electoral College explained - Christina Greer,"
offers a visual explanation about why your vote matters
and how votes are counted for the Electoral College.
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