Every four years, on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November, millions of U.S. citizens exercise their right to vote and elect, among other officials, the next president and vice president. Their votes will be recorded and counted, and sometime late in the day the winners of races from city council to president will be declared by the news media and various elections offices. But the result of the popular vote does not really elect the president, and the outcome of this race cannot be decided until the Electoral College convenes in mid-December to vote. It is, in actuality, the votes of only 538 "electors" in the Electoral College who decide the winner of the presidency.
The Electoral College was crafted by the framers of the U.S. Constitution as a compromise for determining how a president should be picked. At the time, some of the framers did not trust the populace with picking a president. Moreover, rather than having a popular election for the presidency, they had concerns about how to conduct such a large vote (in a day and age without modern technology and communication systems, and when an election was a novel idea). The framers wanted to make sure the right person was selected and the compromise they reached was to set up an Electoral College that allowed voters to vote for electors, who would in turn cast their votes for candidates.
As described in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution, each state has a number of electors equal to the number of its U.S. senators (2 in each state) plus the number of its U.S. representatives, which varies according to the state's population. Currently, the Electoral College includes 538 electors (535 for the total number of congressional members, plus three who represent the District of Columbia). Residents of D.C. were included in the presidential selection process only in 1961, as allowed by the 23rd Amendment. The votes of a majority – 270 electoral votes – are needed to elect a president.
On the Monday following the second Wednesday in December, the electors of each state meet in their respective state capitals to officially cast their votes for president and vice president. These votes are then sealed until they are officially opened by the presiding officer of the Senate on January 6, and certified before both houses of Congress. The presidential inauguration occurs at noon on January 20.
Electors have typically cast their votes for the candidate who has received the most votes in their state. However, there have been times when electors have been "faithless" and voted contrary to the preference of the people from their state. While controversial and infrequent, this is entirely legal, as not all electors are "pledged" by law or the Constitution to vote as their state voted. As such, when you vote for a presidential candidate, you are technically voting to express to an elector from your state how you feel he or she should vote.
In most presidential elections, a candidate who wins the popular vote will also receive the majority of the electoral votes, but this is not always the case. And, in most presidential elections, the Electoral College has succeeded in producing a winner without controversy surrounding the means by which the country selects its president. However, there have been five instances where either presidents have won an election with fewer popular votes than their opponent or the U.S. House of Representatives was forced to pick the president.
The latter scenario has happened twice. Presidents Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and John Quincy Adams in 1824 were elected by the House of Representatives. As a result of the first controversial election in 1800, the 12th Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1804 to remedy potential problems with the way we elect a president. As such, should none of the candidates win the required 270 electoral votes, the 12th Amendment requires the House of Representatives to decide the winner. In this situation, the combined representatives of each state get one vote – so Florida and South Dakota each get one vote – and a simple majority of states is required to win.
In 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, both Democrat-Republicans, defeated John Adams, the Federalist candidate. However, both Jefferson and Burr received the same number of electoral votes, because at the time each elector cast two votes. The tie occurred despite the fact that Burr was to be running as a vice presidential candidate and Jefferson as the presidential candidate. Following 36 successive ballots in the House of Representatives, Jefferson was finally elected president.
In 1824, Andrew Jackson received a majority of the popular vote and John Quincy Adams far less, but neither man received the majority of electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Thus, the race was thrown to the House of Representatives where Adams won on the first ballot.
There have been four elections whereby the candidate who won the popular vote did not win the office. The first occurred in 1824, in the same controversial election between Adams and Jackson discussed above. Andrew Jackson received more than 38,000 votes than John Quincy Adams, but neither candidate won a majority of the Electoral College. Adams was awarded the presidency when the election was thrown to the House of Representatives.
The second instance occurred in 1876. Nearly unanimous support from small states gave Rutherford B. Hayes a one-vote margin in the Electoral College, despite the fact that he lost the popular vote to Samuel J. Tilden by 264,000 votes. Hayes carried five out of the six smallest states (excluding Delaware). These five states plus Colorado gave Hayes 22 electoral votes with only 109,000 popular votes. At the time, Colorado had been just been admitted to the Union and decided to appoint electors instead of holding elections. So, Hayes won Colorado's three electoral votes with zero popular votes. It was the only time in U.S. history that small state support has decided an election. Two different slates of electors (one for Hayes, the other for Tilden) were being contested in three different southern states – one of them being Florida – and a special commission was convened to determine which slate of electors' votes should count. All three slates in support of Hayes were certified, helping Hayes to win by a single vote.
The third "misfired" Electoral College occurred in 1888. Benjamin Harrison lost the popular vote by 95,713 votes to Grover Cleveland, but won the electoral vote by 65. The fourth controversy happened in 2000, when Al Gore received 50,992,335 votes nationwide and George W. Bush received 50,455,156 votes, roughly a half million vote margin separating the two candidates. After Bush was awarded the state of Florida by 537 votes, he had a total of 271 electoral votes, which beat Gore's 266 electoral votes, and gave him the White House by a single vote.
State |
Electors |
Percentage |
Population |
Percentage |
Alabama |
9 |
1.67% |
4,461,130 |
1.58% |
Alaska |
3 |
0.56% |
628,933 |
0.22% |
Arizona |
10 |
1.86% |
5,140,683 |
1.82% |
Arkansas |
6 |
1.12% |
2,679,733 |
0.95% |
California |
55 |
10.22% |
33,930,798 |
12.03% |
Colorado |
9 |
1.67% |
4,311,882 |
1.53% |
Connecticut |
7 |
1.30% |
3,409,535 |
1.21% |
Delaware |
3 |
0.56% |
785,068 |
0.28% |
District of Columbia |
3 |
0.56% |
574,096 |
0.20% |
Florida |
27 |
5.02% |
16,028,890 |
5.68% |
Georgia |
15 |
2.79% |
8,206,975 |
2.91% |
Hawaii |
4 |
0.74% |
1,216,642 |
0.43% |
Idaho |
4 |
0.74% |
1,297,274 |
0.46% |
Illinois |
21 |
3.90% |
12,439,042 |
4.41% |
Indiana |
11 |
2.04% |
6,090,782 |
2.16% |
Iowa |
7 |
1.30% |
2,931,923 |
1.04% |
Kansas |
6 |
1.12% |
2,693,824 |
0.96% |
Kentucky |
8 |
1.49% |
4,049,431 |
1.44% |
Louisiana |
9 |
1.67% |
4,480,271 |
1.59% |
Maine |
4 |
0.74% |
1,277,731 |
0.45% |
Maryland |
10 |
1.86% |
5,307,886 |
1.88% |
Massachusetts |
12 |
2.23% |
6,355,568 |
2.25% |
Michigan |
17 |
3.16% |
9,955,829 |
3.53% |
Minnesota |
10 |
1.86% |
4,925,670 |
1.75% |
Mississippi |
6 |
1.12% |
2,852,927 |
1.01% |
Missouri |
11 |
2.04% |
5,606,260 |
1.99% |
Montana |
3 |
0.56% |
905,316 |
0.32% |
Nebraska |
5 |
0.93% |
1,715,369 |
0.61% |
Nevada |
5 |
0.93% |
2,002,032 |
0.71% |
New Hampshire |
4 |
0.74% |
1,238,415 |
0.44% |
New Jersey |
15 |
2.79% |
8,424,354 |
2.99% |
New Mexico |
5 |
0.93% |
1,823,821 |
0.65% |
New York |
31 |
5.76% |
19,004,973 |
6.74% |
North Carolina |
15 |
2.79% |
8,067,673 |
2.86% |
North Dakota |
3 |
0.56% |
643,756 |
0.23% |
Ohio |
20 |
3.72% |
11,374,540 |
4.03% |
Oklahoma |
7 |
1.30% |
3,458,819 |
1.23% |
Oregon |
7 |
1.30% |
3,428,543 |
1.22% |
Pennsylvania |
21 |
3.90% |
12,300,670 |
4.36% |
Rhode Island |
4 |
0.74% |
1,049,662 |
0.37% |
South Carolina |
8 |
1.49% |
4,025,061 |
1.43% |
South Dakota |
3 |
0.56% |
756,874 |
0.27% |
Tennessee |
11 |
2.04% |
5,700,037 |
2.02% |
Texas |
34 |
6.32% |
20,903,994 |
7.41% |
Utah |
5 |
0.93% |
2,236,714 |
0.79% |
Vermont |
3 |
0.56% |
609,890 |
0.22% |
Virginia |
13 |
2.42% |
7,100,702 |
2.52% |
Washington |
11 |
2.04% |
5,908,684 |
2.10% |
West Virginia |
5 |
0.93% |
1,813,077 |
0.64% |
Wisconsin |
10 |
1.86% |
5,371,210 |
1.90% |
Wyoming |
3 |
0.56% |
495,304 |
0.18% |
Totals |
538 |
100.00% |
281,998,273 |
100.00% |
