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Home Voting and elections How the president is elected Electoral College
Electoral College
The Electoral College decides who will be elected president and vice
president of the U.S. Learn who is involved and how the process works.
What is the Electoral College?
The Electoral College is not a physical place. It is a process which includes the:
Selection of electors
Meeting of electors who cast votes for the president and vice president
Counting of the electors’ votes by Congress
In other U.S. elections, candidates are elected directly by popular vote. But the
president and vice president are not elected directly by citizens. Instead, they
are chosen through the Electoral College process.
The process of using electors comes from the Constitution. It was a compromise between
a popular vote by citizens and a vote in Congress.
Who is in the Electoral College?
Each state gets as many electors as it has members of Congress (House and
Senate). Including Washington, D.C.’s three electors, there are currently 538
electors in all. Find out how many electoral votes each state gets.
Each state’s political parties choose their own slate of potential electors. Who is
chosen to be an elector, how, and when varies by state. Learn more about how
electors are chosen.
How does the Electoral College process
work?
1 After you cast your ballot for president, your vote goes to a statewide tally.
In 48 states and Washington, D.C., the winner gets all the electoral votes for
that state. Maine and Nebraska assign their electors using a proportional
system.
2 A candidate needs the vote of at least 270 electors—more than half of all
electors—to win the presidential election.
3 In most cases, a projected winner is announced on election night in
November after you vote. But the actual Electoral College vote takes place
in mid-December when the electors meet in their states. See the Electoral
College timeline of events for the 2020 election.
While the Constitution does not require electors to vote for the candidate
chosen by their state's popular vote, some states do. The rare elector who votes
for someone else may be fined, disqualified and replaced by a substitute
elector, or potentially even prosecuted by their state.
Learn more about how the Electoral College works.
Unusual Electoral College scenarios
Winning the popular vote but losing the election
It is possible to win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote. This
happened in 2016, 2000, and three times in the 1800s.
What happens if no candidate wins the majority of electoral
votes?
If no candidate receives the majority of electoral votes, the vote goes to the
House of Representatives.
This has happened twice. The first time was following the 1800 presidential
election, when the House chose Thomas Jefferson. And following the 1824
presidential election, the House selected John Quincy Adams as president.
How to change the Electoral College
The Electoral College process is in the U.S. Constitution. It would take a
constitutional amendment to change the process. For more information,
contact your U.S. senator or your U.S. representative.
LAST UPDATED: March 14, 2024
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Form Approved OMB#3090-0297 Exp. Date
06/30/2025
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