Americans elect the President and Vice President through a method of indirect popular election. On the first Tuesday in November, voters cast their ballots for a presidential candidate. These votes actually count towards a group of electors who pledge to vote for a specific candidate in the Electoral College. The "Electoral College" is the group of citizens selected by the people to cast votes for President and Vice President. Show
The presidential/vice presidential pair who wins the popular vote in any given state receives all of the state's Electoral College votes . In the end, the winner of the race is the candidate who receives a majority (270 or more) of the 538 Electoral College votes. The results of the election aren't official until the President of the Senate counts the votes out loud at a special joint session of Congress held in early January. In More Detail: The outlines the process for electing the President. While some state laws regarding this process differ, the general method for electing the president is explained below.
Why do we have the Electoral College?Electors were viewed as a compromise between a true popular election and an election by more qualified citizens. Some of the founders wondered if it would be wise to permit average citizens to vote but wanted to stay true to their republican principles. The Electoral College was their answer. Because the system is written into the , an amendment would be required to alter the process. Like the , the Electoral College helps to distribute power away from the most populated areas of the US. California gets 55 votes compared to Wyoming’s 3, but this divide would be much greater in a purely popular vote. Who are “Faithless Electors”?A faithless elector is one who casts an electoral vote for someone other than the candidate they have pledged to elect. On 157 occasions, electors have cast their votes for president or vice president in a different manner than that prescribed by the legislature of the state they represent. Of those, 71 votes were changed because the original candidate died before the elector was able to cast a vote. Two votes were not cast at all when electors chose to abstain from casting their electoral vote for any candidate. The remaining 85 were changed by the elector's personal interest or perhaps by accident. Usually, the faithless electors act alone. There are laws to punish faithless electors in 24 states. While no faithless elector has ever been punished, the constitutionality of state pledge laws was brought before the Supreme Court in 1952 (Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214). The court upheld those laws that require electors to pledge to vote for the winning candidate, as well as remove electors who refuse to pledge. As stated in the ruling, electors are acting as a function of the state, not the federal government, and states have the right to govern their officers. The constitutionality of punishing an elector for actual faithlessness, however, has never been decided by the Supreme Court. In any event, a state may only punish a faithless elector after the fact; it has no power to change their vote. Understanding what Congress was doing the day the Capitol was attacked by an angry mob on Jan. 6, 2021, is an opportunity to think about the purpose of the Electoral College – the “peculiar and much-criticized” method the United States uses to select its president, says Stanford historian Jonathan Geinapp. By Melissa De Witte The Electoral College is in the spotlight again: It was one of the issues discussed at Wednesday’s Jan. 6 hearings when lawmakers examined the demands former President Donald Trump put on former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence to reject certifying the Electoral College votes in the 2020 presidential election. And right before the Jan. 6 committee looked at how such a maneuver would be unconstitutional, a group of bipartisan lawmakers, concerned about future attempts to illegally overturn elections through this process, discussed a framework to reform the Electoral College Act and explicitly state what the vice president’s role is, among other provisions. Go to the web site to view the video. Kurt Hickman & Farrin Abbott In the fall quarter course, the History of 2021, Stanford faculty offer historically-informed reflections on some of the year’s most pressing issues and show students how many of today’s problems are inherited from the past. Stanford historian Jonathan Gienapp’s lecture, titled Electing the U.S. President: The Electoral College, focuses on the origins of the Electoral College and attempts to reform it. So, what is the Electoral College and what role does it play in determining the outcome of U.S. presidential elections? Why was the formal process targeted by Trump and his supporters? These were questions Stanford historian Jonathan Gienapp discussed with Stanford News as part of its coverage of History of 2021, a class that provided a historical perspective on important issues of the day – including why on Jan. 6, 2021, a violent mob stormed Capitol Hill in an attempt to disrupt the joint session of Congress that had assembled to complete counting votes to certify then-President-elect Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. “This final step is usually not very dramatic – a mere formality – but of course that was not the case this past year,” Gienapp said, adding: “Understanding what Congress was even doing on Jan. 6 before the Capitol was besieged invites us to ponder the Electoral College – the peculiar and much-criticized mechanism by which the United States chooses its president.” The answers below are excerpts from the previous coverage of Gienapp’s lecture.
Why did the United States devise a system like the Electoral College, considering no other modern democracy uses a system like this one? The answers to this question can be surprising since the history of the Electoral College is so often clouded by myths. Related Stories Humanities What history can tell us about 2021In the fall quarter course, History of 2021, Stanford faculty offered historically informed reflections on some of the year’s most pressing issues and showed students how many of today’s problems are inherited from the past. Law & Policy What is the Electoral College and is it fair?Stanford historian Jack Rakove discusses what is the Electoral College and is it fair on Stanford Legal. This is especially true of the institution’s origins. Why did the Constitution’s authors choose this particular system for electing the president? The most important thing to appreciate is that they chose the Electoral College not because it was the most desirable option, but because it was the least undesirable. The leading alternatives – legislative selection by Congress or a national popular vote – were met with powerful objections. If Congress elected the president, it was feared that the latter would become the puppet of the former, nullifying any hope of executive independence. When it came to a national popular vote, meanwhile, there were worries that, at a time when information moved slowly, especially across such a large nation, voters would be familiar only with the candidates from their home states and thus tend to choose them. There were also grave concerns that the people would be seduced by demagogues. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention chose the Electoral College less because of its virtues than because of its competitors’ perceived shortcomings.
What have been some previous attempts to reform the Electoral College and why did they fail? The Electoral College has always been an oddity. Since it was first used, it has been criticized. For most of the 20th century, there was bipartisan support to reform it. But, more recently, reform has become a partisan issue. The late 1960s and early 1970s were a high watermark for Electoral College reform. A constitutional amendment to replace the Electoral College with a national popular vote was approved by the House of Representatives by an overwhelming margin but was subsequently blocked by Southerners in the Senate. This opposition was rooted in race. For decades, white Southerners had systematically disenfranchised African Americans, yet because electoral votes were apportioned based on population, not total voters, Southern states did not sacrifice any political power. Had the Electoral College been replaced by a national popular vote, however, the Southern states would have lost the political power they had come to enjoy. This failed attempt to abolish the Electoral College – only the most prominent of many stretching over two centuries – illustrates a vital point. The Electoral College remains with us today for one simple reason: because the U.S. Constitution is so difficult to amend. It is important to understand the origins of the Electoral College in light of the ongoing debate over whether to reform it. More often than not, defenders of the Electoral College rely on inaccurate history, falsely claiming that it was designed to work as it does today. Democracy is predicated on public debate, and that debate should ultimately turn on the merits of the question, not historical myths.
One of the criticisms of the Electoral College process centers around the divergence that can occur between winning the Electoral College and the national, popular vote. Can you explain this dynamic a little further? What actually causes the problems that we’re seeing today that can lead to a difference in who wins the Electoral College and who wins the national popular vote is nothing mandated by the Constitution, but instead the choices that almost all the states have made to distribute their electors based on a winner take all model. Whoever wins the most votes in Florida gets 100% of the electoral votes in Florida, the same as California, Texas, Ohio, and Michigan. The only two states that don’t do this are Maine and Nebraska. None of this is required. The states began doing this early in the Electoral College’s history because there was a recognition, which makes perfect sense from a political standpoint, that if some states are doing it, every other state needs to do it – otherwise, they’re going to punish themselves. What is really important to know is that the distinctive feature of the Electoral College that causes the most problems in people’s eyes is actually the one thing that is not required. That is just a matter of state law, and any state legislature could change it at any time to any system they prefer. Jonathan Gienapp is an assistant professor of history in the School of Humanities and Sciences. His scholarship focuses on the constitutional, political, and legal history of the early United States. His book, The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard University Press, Belknap, 2018), rethinks the conventional story of American constitutional creation by exploring how and why founding-era Americans’ understanding of their Constitution transformed in the earliest years of the document’s existence. Social Sciences What to read next:Medicine New blood test to identify infections could reduce global antibiotic overuseA diagnostic test developed by Stanford Medicine scientists can separate bacterial and viral infections with 90% accuracy, the first to meet standards set by the World Health Organization. Science & Technology Can we improve psychotherapy by quantifying therapists’ language?Stanford researchers have created a set of open-source tools to measure therapists’ timing, responsiveness, and consistency to better understand what works. From The Archives The many makerspaces of the Stanford campusDozens of spaces at Stanford help students and faculty – and, in some cases, staff and community members – explore their inner maker while also supporting those who are experienced creators. What is the role of the Electoral College in presidential elections?The Electoral College is how we refer to the process by which the United States elects the President, even though that term does not appear in the U.S. Constitution. In this process, the States (which includes the District of Columbia just for this process) elect the President and Vice President.
Which is true of the Electoral College quizlet?Which is true of the electoral college? It was created by an amendment to the Constitution.
How does the Electoral College elect the President quizlet?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.
Is the Electoral College a fair method of electing the President quizlet?Is the electoral college fair? Yes because it gives the smaller states more say in the election. Also the president has to go to every state. And the winner of the popular vote might not win the election.
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What is true of the Electoral College system for electing the U.S. president?
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