United States Electoral College

Procedure

Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution directs each state to appoint a number of electors equal to that state's congressional delegation (the number of members of the House of Representatives plus two senators). The same clause empowers each state legislature to determine the manner by which that state's electors are chosen but prohibits federal office holders from being named electors. Following the national presidential election day on Tuesday after the first Monday in November, each state, and the federal district, selects its electors according to its laws. After a popular election, the states identify and record their appointed electors in a Certificate of Ascertainment, and those appointed electors then meet in their respective jurisdictions and produce a Certificate of Vote for their candidate; both certificates are then sent to Congress to be opened and counted.

In 48 of the 50 states, state laws mandate that the winner of the plurality of the statewide popular vote receives all of that state's electoral votes. In Maine and Nebraska, two electoral votes are assigned in this manner, while the remaining electoral votes are allocated based on the plurality of votes in each of their congressional districts. The federal district, Washington, D.C., allocates its 3 electoral votes to the winner of its single district election. States generally require electors to pledge to vote for that state's winning ticket; to prevent electors from becoming faithless electors, most states have adopted various laws to enforce the electors' pledge.

The electors of each state meet in their respective state capital on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday of December, between December 14 and 20, to cast their votes. The results are sent to and counted by the Congress, where they are tabulated in the first week of January before a joint meeting of the Senate and the House of Representatives, presided over by the current vice president, as president of the Senate.

If a majority of votes are not cast for a candidate, a contingent election takes place: the House holds a presidential election session, where one vote is cast by each of the fifty states. The Senate is responsible for electing the vice president, with each senator having one vote. The elected president and vice president are inaugurated on January 20.

Since 1964, there have been 538 electors. States select 535 of the electors; this number matches the aggregate total of their congressional delegations. The additional three electors come from the Twenty-third Amendment, ratified in 1961, providing that the district established pursuant to Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 as the seat of the federal government (namely, Washington, D.C.) is entitled to the same number of electors as the least populous state. In practice, that results in Washington, D.C. being entitled to three electors.

Background

The Electoral College was officially selected as the means of electing the president towards the end of the Constitutional Convention, due to pressure from slave states wanting to increase their voting power, since they could count slaves as 3/5 of a person when allocating electors, and by small states who increased their power given the minimum of three electors per state. The compromise was reached after other proposals, including a direct election for president (as proposed by Hamilton among others), failed to get traction among slave states. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt describe it as "not a product of constitutional theory or farsighted design. Rather, it was adopted by default, after all other alternatives had been rejected."

In 1787, the Constitutional Convention used the Virginia Plan as the basis for discussions, as the Virginia proposal was the first. The Virginia Plan called for Congress to elect the president. Delegates from a majority of states agreed to this mode of election. After being debated, delegates came to oppose nomination by Congress for the reason that it could violate the separation of powers. James Wilson then made a motion for electors for the purpose of choosing the president.

Later in the convention, a committee formed to work out various details. They included the mode of election of the president, including final recommendations for the electors, a group of people apportioned among the states in the same numbers as their representatives in Congress (the formula for which had been resolved in lengthy debates resulting in the Connecticut Compromise and Three-Fifths Compromise), but chosen by each state "in such manner as its Legislature may direct". Committee member Gouverneur Morris explained the reasons for the change. Among others, there were fears of "intrigue" if the president were chosen by a small group of men who met together regularly, as well as concerns for the independence of the president if he were elected by Congress.

Once the Electoral College had been decided on, several delegates (Mason, Butler, Morris, Wilson, and Madison) openly recognized its ability to protect the election process from cabal, corruption, intrigue, and faction. Some delegates, including James Wilson and James Madison, preferred popular election of the executive. Madison acknowledged that while a popular vote would be ideal, it would be difficult to get consensus on the proposal given the prevalence of slavery in the South:

History

Original plan

Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 of the Constitution provided the original plan by which the electors voted for president. Under the original plan, each elector cast two votes for president; electors did not vote for vice president. Whoever received a majority of votes from the electors would become president; with the person receiving the second most votes becoming vice president.

According to Stanley Chang, the original plan of the Electoral College was based upon several assumptions and anticipations of the Framers of the Constitution:

Choice of the president should reflect the "sense of the people" at a particular time, not the dictates of a faction in a "pre-established body" such as Congress or the State legislatures, and independent of the influence of "foreign powers".

The choice would be made decisively with a "full and fair expression of the public will" but also maintaining "as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder".

Individual electors would be elected by citizens on a district-by-district basis. Voting for president would include the widest electorate allowed in each state.

Each presidential elector would exercise independent judgment when voting, deliberating with the most complete information available in a system that over time, tended to bring about a good administration of the laws passed by Congress.

Candidates would not pair together on the same ticket with assumed placements toward each office of president and vice president.

Election expert, William C. Kimberling, reflected on the original intent as follows:

"The function of the College of Electors in choosing the president can be likened to that in the Roman Catholic Church of the College of Cardinals selecting the Pope. The original idea was for the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each State to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party."

Evolution from unpledged to pledged electors

Some Founding Fathers hoped that each elector would be elected by the citizens of a district and that elector was to be free to analyze and deliberate regarding who is best suited to be president.

In Federalist No. 68 Alexander Hamilton described the Founding Fathers' view of how electors would be chosen: A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated [tasks]... They [the framers of the constitution] have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men [i.e. Electors pledged to vote one way or another], who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes [i.e., to be told how to vote]; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons [Electors to the Electoral College] for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have EXCLUDED from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office [in other words, no one can be an Elector who is prejudiced toward the president]... Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias [Electors must not come to the Electoral College with bias]. Their transient existence, and their detached [unbiased] situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it."

However, when electors were pledged to vote for a specific candidate, the slate of electors chosen by the state were no longer free agents, independent thinkers, or deliberative representatives. They became, as Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote, "voluntary party lackeys and intellectual non-entities." According to Hamilton, writing in 1788, the selection of the president should be "made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station [of president]."

Hamilton stated that the electors were to analyze the list of potential presidents and select the best one. He also used the term "deliberate." In a 2020 opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court, the court additionally cited John Jay's view that the electors' choices would reflect "discretion and discernment."

Evolution to the general ticket

Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution states:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

According to Hamilton, Madison and others, the original intent was that this would take place district by district. The district plan was last carried out in Michigan in 1892. For example, in Massachusetts in 1820, the rule stated "the people shall vote by ballot, on which shall be designated who is voted for as an Elector for the district." In other words, the name of a candidate for president was not on the ballot. Instead, citizens voted for their local elector.

Some state leaders began to adopt the strategy that the favorite partisan presidential candidate among the people in their state would have a much better chance if all of the electors selected by their state were sure to vote the same way—a "general ticket" of electors pledged to a party candidate. Once one state took that strategy, the others felt compelled to follow suit in order to compete for the strongest influence on the election.

When James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, two of the most important architects of the Electoral College, saw this strategy being taken by some states, they protested strongly. Madison said that when the Constitution was written, all of its authors assumed individual electors would be elected in their districts, and it was inconceivable that a "general ticket" of electors dictated by a state would supplant the concept. Madison wrote to George Hay: The district mode was mostly, if not exclusively in view when the Constitution was framed and adopted; & was exchanged for the general ticket [many years later].

Each state government was free to have its own plan for selecting its electors, and the Constitution does not explicitly require states to popularly elect their electors. However, Federalist No. 68, insofar as it reflects the intent of the founders, states that Electors will be "selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass," and with regard to choosing Electors, "they [the framers] have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America." Several methods for selecting electors are described below.

Evolution of selection plans

In 1789, the at-large popular vote, the winner-take-all method, began with Pennsylvania and Maryland. Massachusetts, Virginia and Delaware used a district plan by popular vote, and state legislatures chose in the five other states participating in the election (Connecticut, Georgia, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and South Carolina). New York, North Carolina and Rhode Island did not participate in the election. New York's legislature deadlocked over the method of choosing electors and abstained; North Carolina and Rhode Island had not yet ratified the Constitution.

By 1800, Virginia and Rhode Island voted at large; Kentucky, Maryland, and North Carolina voted popularly by district; and eleven states voted by state legislature. Beginning in 1804 there was a definite trend towards the winner-take-all system for statewide popular vote.

By 1832, only South Carolina legislatively chose its electors, and it abandoned the method after 1860. Maryland was the only state using a district plan, and from 1836 district plans fell out of use until the 20th century, though Michigan used a district plan for 1892 only. States using popular vote by district have included ten states from all regions of the country.

Since 1836, statewide winner-take-all popular voting for electors has been the almost universal practice. Currently, Maine (since 1972) and Nebraska (since 1992) use a district plan, with two at-large electors assigned to support the winner of the statewide popular vote.

Correlation between popular vote and electoral college votes

Since the mid-19th century, when all electors have been popularly chosen, the Electoral College has elected the candidate who received the most (though not necessarily a majority) popular votes nationwide, except in four elections: 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. A case has also been made that it happened in 1960. In 1824, when there were six states in which electors were legislatively appointed, rather than popularly elected, the true national popular vote is uncertain. The electors in 1824 failed to select a winning candidate, so the matter was decided by the House of Representatives.

Three-fifths clause and the role of slavery

After the initial estimates agreed to in the original Constitution, Congressional and Electoral College reapportionment was made according to a decennial census to reflect population changes, modified by counting three-fifths of slaves. On this basis after the first census, the Electoral College still gave the free men of slave-owning states (but never slaves) extra power (Electors) based on a count of these disenfranchised people, in the choice of the U.S. president.

At the Constitutional Convention, the college composition, in theory, amounted to 49 votes for northern states (in the process of abolishing slavery) and 42 for slave-holding states (including Delaware). In the event, the first (i.e. 1788) presidential election lacked votes and electors for unratified Rhode Island (3) and North Carolina (7) and for New York (8) which reported too late; the Northern majority was 38 to 35. For the next two decades, the three-fifths clause led to electors of free-soil Northern states numbering 8% and 11% more than Southern states. The latter had, in the compromise, relinquished counting two-fifths of their slaves and, after 1810, were outnumbered by 15.4% to 23.2%.

While House members for Southern states were boosted by an average of 1⁄3, a free-soil majority in the college maintained over this early republic and Antebellum period. Scholars conclude that the three-fifths clause had low impact on sectional proportions and factional strength, until denying the North a pronounced supermajority, as to the Northern, federal initiative to abolish slavery. The seats that the South gained from such "slave bonus" were quite evenly distributed between the parties. In the First Party System (1795–1823), the Jefferson Republicans gained 1.1 percent more adherents from the slave bonus, while the Federalists lost the same proportion. At the Second Party System (1823–1837) the emerging Jacksonians gained just 0.7% more seats, versus the opposition loss of 1.6%.

The three-fifths slave-count rule is associated with three or four outcomes, 1792–1860:

The clause, having reduced the South's power, led to John Adams's win in 1796 over Thomas Jefferson.

In 1800, historian Garry Wills argues, Jefferson's victory over Adams was due to the slave bonus count in the Electoral College as Adams would have won if citizens' votes were used for each state. However, historian Sean Wilentz points out that Jefferson's purported "slave advantage" ignores an offset by electoral manipulation by anti-Jefferson forces in Pennsylvania. Wilentz concludes that it is a myth to say that the Electoral College was a pro-slavery ploy.

Fourteenth Amendment

Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state's representation in the House of Representatives to be reduced if the state denies the right to vote to any male citizen aged 21 or older, unless on the basis of "participation in rebellion, or other crime". The reduction is to be proportionate to such people denied a vote. This amendment refers to "the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States" (among other elections). It is the only part of the Constitution currently alluding to electors being selected by popular vote.

On May 8, 1866, during a debate on the Fourteenth Amendment, Thaddeus Stevens, the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, delivered a speech on the amendment's intent. Regarding Section 2, he said:

The second section I consider the most important in the article. It fixes the basis of representation in Congress. If any State shall exclude any of her adult male citizens from the elective franchise, or abridge that right, she shall forfeit her right to representation in the same proportion. The effect of this provision will be either to compel the States to grant universal suffrage or so shear them of their power as to keep them forever in a hopeless minority in the national Government, both legislative and executive.

Federal law (2 U.S.C. § 6) implements Section 2's mandate.

Meeting of electors

Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 of the Constitution authorizes Congress to fix the day on which the electors shall vote, which must be the same day throughout the United States. And both Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 and the Twelfth Amendment that replaced it specifies that "the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted."

In 1887, Congress passed the Electoral Count Act, now codified in Title 3, Chapter 1 of the United States Code, establishing specific procedures for the counting of the electoral votes. The law was passed in response to the disputed 1876 presidential election, in which several states submitted competing slates of electors. Among its provisions, the law established deadlines that the states must meet when selecting their electors, resolving disputes, and when they must cast their electoral votes.

From 1948 to 2022, the date fixed by Congress for the meeting of the Electoral College was "on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December next following their appointment". As of 2022, with the passing of "S.4573 - Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022", this was changed to be "on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December next following their appointment".

Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, disqualifies all elected and appointed federal officials from being electors. The Office of the Federal Register is charged with administering the Electoral College.

After the vote, each state sends to Congress a certified record of their electoral votes, called the Certificate of Vote. These certificates are opened during a joint session of Congress, held on January 6 unless another date is specified by law, and read aloud by the incumbent vice president, acting in his capacity as president of the Senate. If any person receives an absolute majority of electoral votes, that person is declared the winner. If there is a tie, or if no candidate for either or both offices receives an absolute majority, then choice falls to Congress in a procedure known as a contingent election.

Modern mechanics

Summary

The president and vice president of the United States are elected by the Electoral College, which consists of 538 electors chosen by the fifty states and Washington, D.C. Electors are selected by each state's legislature.

Since the 1824 election, the majority of states have chosen their presidential electors based on winner-take-all results in the statewide popular vote on Election Day.

As of 2020, Maine and Nebraska are exceptions as both use the congressional district method, Maine since 1972 and in Nebraska since 1992. In most states, the popular vote ballots list the names of the presidential and vice presidential candidates (who run on a ticket). The slate of electors that represent the winning ticket will vote for those two offices. Electors are nominated by the party and, usually, they vote for the ticket to which are promised.

Many states require an elector to vote for the candidate to which the elector is pledged, but some "faithless electors" have voted for other candidates or refrained from voting. A candidate must receive an absolute majority of electoral votes (currently 270) to win the presidency or the vice presidency. If no candidate receives a majority in the election for president or vice president, the election is determined via a contingency procedure established by the Twelfth Amendment. In such a situation, the House chooses one of the top three presidential electoral vote winners as the president, while the Senate chooses one of the top two vice presidential electoral vote winners as vice president.

While an aggregate national popular vote total is calculated by state officials, media organizations, and the Federal Election Commission, these votes only indirectly elect the president and vice president.

Electors

A state's number of electors equals the number of representatives plus two electors for the senators the state has in the United States Congress. Each state is entitled to at least one representative, the remaining number of representatives per state is apportioned based on their respective populations, determined every ten years by the United States census. In summary, 153 electors are divided equally among the states and the District of Columbia (3 each), and the remaining 385 are assigned by an apportionment among states.

Under the Twenty-third Amendment, Washington, D.C., is allocated as many electors as it would have if it were a state but no more electors than the least populous state. Because the least populous state (Wyoming, in the 2020 census) has three electors, D.C. cannot have more than three electors. Even if D.C. were a state, its population would entitle it to only three electors. Based on its population per electoral vote, D.C. has the third highest per capita Electoral College representation, after Wyoming and Vermont.

Currently, there are 538 electors, based on 435 representatives, 100 senators from the fifty states and three electors from Washington, D.C. The six states with the most electors are California (54), Texas (40), Florida (30), New York (28), Illinois (19), and Pennsylvania (19). The District of Columbia and the six least populous states—Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming—have three electors each.

The custom of allowing recognized political parties to select a slate of prospective electors developed early. In contemporary practice, each presidential-vice presidential ticket has an associated slate of potential electors. Then on Election Day, the voters select a ticket and thereby select the associated electors.

Candidates for elector are nominated by state chapters of nationally oriented political parties in the months prior to Election Day. In some states, the electors are nominated by voters in primaries the same way other presidential candidates are nominated. In some states, such as Oklahoma, Virginia, and North Carolina, electors are nominated in party conventions. In Pennsylvania, the campaign committee of each candidate names their respective electoral college candidates, an attempt to discourage faithless electors. Varying by state, electors may also be elected by state legislatures or appointed by the parties themselves.

Joint session of Congress

The Twelfth Amendment mandates Congress assemble in joint session to count the electoral votes and declare the winners of the election. The session is ordinarily required to take place on January 6 in the calendar year immediately following the meetings of the presidential electors. Since the Twentieth Amendment, the newly elected joint Congress declares the winner of the election. All elections before 1936 were determined by the outgoing House.

The Office of the Federal Register is charged with administering the Electoral College. The meeting is held at 1 p.m. in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives. The sitting vice president is expected to preside, but in several cases the president pro tempore of the Senate has chaired the proceedings. The vice president and the speaker of the House sit at the podium, with the vice president sitting to the right of the speaker of the House. Senate pages bring in two mahogany boxes containing each state's certified vote and place them on tables in front of the senators and representatives. Each house appoints two tellers to count the vote, normally one member of each political party. Relevant portions of the certificate of vote are read for each state, in alphabetical order.

Before an amendment to the law in 2022, members of Congress could object to any state's vote count, provided objection is presented in writing and is signed by at least one member of each house of Congress. In 2022, the number of members required to make an objection was raised to one-fifth of each house. An appropriately made objection is followed by the suspension of the joint session and by separate debates and votes in each house of Congress. After both houses deliberate on the objection, the joint session is resumed.

A state's certificate of vote can be rejected only if both houses of Congress vote to accept the objection via a simple majority, meaning the votes from the state in question are not counted. Individual votes can also be rejected, and are also not counted.

If there are no objections or all objections are overruled, the presiding officer simply includes a state's votes, as declared in the certificate of vote, in the official tally.

After the certificates from all states are read and the respective votes are counted, the presiding officer simply announces the final state of the vote. This announcement concludes the joint session and formalizes the recognition of the president-elect and of the vice president-elect. The senators then depart from the House chamber. The final tally is printed in the Senate and House journals.

Contingencies

If no candidate for president receives an absolute majority of the electoral votes (since 1964, 270 of the 538 electoral votes), then the Twelfth Amendment requires the House of Representatives to go into session immediately to choose a president. In this event, the House of Representatives is limited to choosing from among the three candidates who received the most electoral votes for president. Each state delegation votes en bloc—each delegation having a single vote. The District of Columbia does not get to vote.

A candidate must receive an absolute majority of state delegation votes (i.e., from 1959, which is the last time a new state was admitted to the union, a minimum of 26 votes) in order for that candidate to become the president-elect. Delegations from at least two thirds of all the states must be present for voting to take place. The House continues balloting until it elects a president.

The House of Representatives has been required to choose the president only twice: in 1801 under Article II, Section 1, Clause 3; and in 1825 under the Twelfth Amendment.

If no candidate for vice president receives an absolute majority of electoral votes, then the Senate must go into session to choose a vice president. The Senate is limited to choosing from the two candidates who received the most electoral votes for vice president. Normally this would mean two candidates, one less than the number of candidates available in the House vote.

However, the text is written in such a way that all candidates with the most and second-most electoral votes are eligible for the Senate election—this number could theoretically be larger than two. The Senate votes in the normal manner in this case (i.e., ballots are individually cast by each senator, not by state delegations). Two-thirds of the senators must be present for voting to take place.

The Twelfth Amendment states a "majority of the whole number" of senators, currently 51 of 100, is necessary for election. The language requiring an absolute majority of Senate votes precludes the sitting vice president from breaking any tie that might occur, although some academics and journalists have speculated to the contrary.

Current electoral vote distribution

* The Twenty-third Amendment grants D.C. the same number of electors as the least populous state. This has always been three.

** Two of Maine's four electors and three of Nebraska's five are distributed using the Congressional district method. The other two in each state are elected as a general ticket based on statewide vote.

Chronological table

Source: Presidential Elections 1789–2000 at Psephos (Adam Carr's Election Archive)

Note: In 1788, 1792, 1796, and 1800, each elector cast two votes for president.

Alternative methods of choosing electors

Before the advent of the "short ballot" in the early 20th century (as described in Selection process) the most common means of electing the presidential electors was through the general ticket. The general ticket is quite similar to the current system and is often confused with it. In the general ticket, voters cast ballots for individuals running for presidential elector. In the short ballot, voters cast ballots for an entire slate of electors.

In the general ticket, the state canvass would report the number of votes cast for each candidate for elector, a complicated process in states like New York with multiple positions to fill. Both the general ticket and the short ballot are often considered at-large or winner-takes-all voting. The short ballot was adopted by the various states at different times. It was adopted for use by North Carolina and Ohio in 1932. Alabama was still using the general ticket as late as 1960 and was one of the last states to switch to the short ballot.

The question of the extent to which state constitutions may constrain the legislature's choice of a method of choosing electors has been touched on in two U.S. Supreme Court cases. In McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1 (1892), the Court cited Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 which states that a state's electors are selected "in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct" and wrote these words "operat[e] as a limitation upon the state in respect of any attempt to circumscribe the legislative power".

In Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, 531 U.S. 70 (2000), a Florida Supreme Court decision was vacated (not reversed) based on McPherson. On the other hand, three dissenting justices in Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), wrote: "[N]othing in Article II of the Federal Constitution frees the state legislature from the constraints in the State Constitution that created it."

Appointment by state legislature

In the earliest presidential elections, state legislative choice was the most common method of choosing electors. A majority of the state legislatures selected presidential electors in both 1792 (9 of 15) and 1800 (10 of 16), and half of them did so in 1812. Even in the 1824 election, a quarter of state legislatures (6 of 24) chose electors. In that election, Andrew Jackson lost in spite of having a plurality of both the popular vote and the number of electoral votes representing them. Yet, as six states did not hold a popular election for their electoral votes, the full expression of the popular vote nationally cannot be known.

Some state legislatures simply chose electors. Other states used a hybrid method in which state legislatures chose from a group of electors elected by popular vote. By 1828, with the rise of Jacksonian democracy, only Delaware and South Carolina used legislative choice. Delaware ended its practice the following election (1832). South Carolina continued using the method until it seceded from the Union in December 1860. South Carolina used the popular vote for the first time in the 1868 election.

Excluding South Carolina, legislative appointment was used in only four situations after 1832:

In 1848, Massachusetts statute awarded the state's electoral votes to the winner of the at-large popular vote, but only if that candidate won an absolute majority. When the vote produced no winner between the Democratic, Free Soil, and Whig parties, the state legislature selected the electors, giving all 12 electoral votes to the Whigs, which had won the plurality of votes in the state.

In 1864, Nevada, having joined the Union only a few days prior to Election Day, had no choice but to legislatively appoint.

In 1868, the newly reconstructed state of Florida legislatively appointed its electors, having been readmitted too late to hold elections.

In 1876, the legislature of the newly admitted state of Colorado used legislative choice due to a lack of time and money to hold a popular election.

Electoral districts

Another method used early in U.S. history was to divide the state into electoral districts. By this method, voters in each district would cast their ballots for the electors they supported and the winner in each district would become the elector. This was similar to how states are currently separated into congressional districts. The difference stems from the fact that every state always had two more electoral districts than congressional districts. As with congressional districts, this method is vulnerable to gerrymandering.

Congressional district method

There are two versions of the congressional district method: one has been implemented in Maine and Nebraska; another was used in New York in 1828 and proposed for use in Virginia. Under the implemented method, electors are awarded the way seats in Congress are awarded. One electoral vote goes per the plurality of the popular votes of each congressional district (for the U.S. House of Representatives), and two per the statewide popular vote. This may result in greater proportionality. But it can give results similar to the winner-takes-all states, as in 1992, when George H. W. Bush won all five of Nebraska's electoral votes with a clear plurality on 47% of the vote; in a truly proportional system, he would have received three and Bill Clinton and Ross Perot each would have received one.

In 2013, the Virginia proposal was tabled. Like the other congressional district methods, this would have distributed the electoral votes based on the popular vote winner within each of Virginia's 11 congressional districts; the two statewide electoral votes would be awarded based on which candidate won the most congressional districts. A similar method was used in New York in 1828: the two at large electors were elected by the electors selected in districts.

A congressional district method is more likely to arise than other alternatives to the winner-takes-whole-state method, in view of the main two parties' resistance to scrap first-past-the-post. State legislation is sufficient to use this method. Advocates of the method believe the system encourages higher voter turnout or incentivizes candidates, to visit and appeal to some states deemed safe, overall, for one party.

Winner-take-all systems ignore thousands of votes. In Democratic California there are Republican districts, in Republican Texas there are Democratic districts. Because candidates have an incentive to campaign in competitive districts, with a district plan, candidates have an incentive to actively campaign in over thirty states versus about seven "swing" states. Opponents of the system argue that candidates might only spend time in certain battleground districts instead of the entire state and cases of gerrymandering could become exacerbated as political parties attempt to draw as many safe districts as they can.

Unlike simple congressional district comparisons, the district plan popular vote bonus in the 2008 election would have given Obama 56% of the Electoral College versus the 68% he did win; it "would have more closely approximated the percentage of the popular vote won [53%]". However, the district plan would have given Obama 49% of the Electoral College in 2012, and would have given Romney a win in the Electoral College even though Obama won the popular vote by nearly 4% (51.1–47.2) over Romney.

Proportional vote

In a proportional system, electors would be selected in proportion to the votes cast for their candidate or party, rather than being selected by the statewide plurality vote.

Impacts and reception

Gary Bugh's research of congressional debates over proposed constitutional amendments to abolish the Electoral College reveals reform opponents have often appealed to tradition and the preference for indirect elections, whereas reform advocates often champion a more egalitarian one person, one vote system. Electoral colleges have been scrapped by all other democracies around the world in favor of direct elections for an executive president.

Critics argue that the Electoral College is less democratic than a national direct popular vote and is subject to manipulation because of faithless electors; that the system is antithetical to a democracy that strives for a standard of "one person, one vote"; and there can be elections where one candidate wins the national popular vote but another wins the electoral vote, as in the 2000 and 2016 elections. Individual citizens in less populated states with 5% of the Electoral College have proportionately more voting power than those in more populous states, and candidates can win by focusing on just a few "swing states".

Polling ~40%

Twenty-first century polling data shows that a majority of Americans consistently favor having a direct popular vote for presidential elections. The popularity of the Electoral College has hovered between 35% and 44%.

Difference with popular vote

Opponents of the Electoral College claim such outcomes do not logically follow the normative concept of how a democratic system should function. One view is the Electoral College violates the principle of political equality, since presidential elections are not decided by the one-person one-vote principle.

While many assume the national popular vote observed under the Electoral College system would reflect the popular vote observed under a National Popular Vote system, supporters contend that is not necessarily the case as each electoral institution produces different incentives for, and strategy choices by, presidential campaigns.

The elections of 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 produced an Electoral College winner who did not receive at least a plurality of the nationwide popular vote. In 1824, there were six states in which electors were legislatively appointed, rather than popularly elected, so it is uncertain what the national popular vote would have been if all presidential electors had been popularly elected. When no presidential candidate received a majority of electoral votes in 1824, the election was decided by the House of Representatives and so could be considered distinct from the latter four elections in which all of the states had popular selection of electors. The true national popular vote was also uncertain in the 1960 election, and the plurality for the winner depends on how votes for Alabama electors are allocated.

Elections where the popular vote and electoral college results differed

1800: Jefferson won with 61.4% of the popular vote; Adams had 38.6%*

1824: Adams won with 30.9% of the popular vote; Jackson had 41.4%*

1836 (only for vice president): Johnson won with 63.5% of the popular vote; Granger had 30.8%*

1876: Tilden (D) received 50.9% of the vote, Hayes (R) received 47.9%

Favors largest swing states

The Electoral College encourages political campaigners to focus on a few so-called swing states while ignoring the rest of the country. Populous states in which pre-election poll results show no clear favorite are inundated with campaign visits, saturation television advertising, get-out-the-vote efforts by party organizers, and debates, while four out of five voters in the national election are "absolutely ignored", according to one assessment. Since most states use a winner-takes-all arrangement in which the candidate with the most votes in that state receives all of the state's electoral votes, there is a clear incentive to focus almost exclusively on only a few key undecided states.

Not all votes count the same

Each state gets a minimum of three electoral votes, regardless of population, which has increasingly given low-population states more electors per voter (or more voting power). For example, an electoral vote represents nearly four times as many people in California as in Wyoming. On average, voters in the ten least populated states have 2.5 more electors per person compared with voters in the ten most populous states.

In 1968, John F. Banzhaf III developed the Banzhaf power index (BPI) which argued that a voter in the state of New York had, on average, 3.3 times as much voting power in presidential elections as the average voter outside New York. Mark Livingston used a similar method and estimated that individual voters in the largest state, based on the 1990 census, had 3.3 times more individual power to choose a president than voters of Montana.

However, others argue that Banzhaf's method ignores the demographic makeup of the states and treats votes like independent coin-flips. Critics of Banzhaf's method say empirically based models used to analyze the Electoral College have consistently found that sparsely populated states benefit from having their resident's votes count for more than the votes of those residing in the more populous states.

Lowers turnout

Except in closely fought swing states, voter turnout does not affect the election results due to entrenched political party domination in most states. The Electoral College decreases the advantage a political party or campaign might gain for encouraging voters to turn out, except in those swing states. If the presidential election were decided by a national popular vote, in contrast, campaigns and parties would have a strong incentive to work to increase turnout everywhere.

Individuals would similarly have a stronger incentive to persuade their friends and neighbors to turn out to vote. The differences in turnout between swing states and non-swing states under the current electoral college system suggest that replacing the Electoral College with direct election by popular vote would likely increase turnout and participation significantly.

Obscures disenfranchisement within states

Legal scholars Akhil Amar and Vikram Amar have argued that the original Electoral College compromise was enacted partially because it enabled Southern states to disenfranchise their slave populations. It permitted Southern states to disfranchise large numbers of slaves while allowing these states to maintain political clout and prevent Northern dominance within the federation by using the Three-Fifths Compromise. They noted that James Madison believed the question of counting slaves had presented a serious challenge, but that "the substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections." Akhil and Vikram Amar added:

The founders' system also encouraged the continued disfranchisement of women. In a direct national election system, any state that gave women the vote would automatically have doubled its national clout. Under the Electoral College, however, a state had no such incentive to increase the franchise; as with slaves, what mattered was how many women lived in a state, not how many were empowered ... a state with low voter turnout gets precisely the same number of electoral votes as if it had a high turnout. By contrast, a well-designed direct election system could spur states to get out the vote.

After the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, southern states benefited from elimination of the Three-Fifths Compromise because with all former slaves counted as one person, instead of 3/5, Southern states increased their share of electors in the Electoral College. This also gave African-Americans more representation and voting power during Reconstruction. Southern states were the first to elect African-Americans to Congress including America's first black Senator from Mississippi. Southern states later enacted laws that restricted voting access to voting to African-Americans, thereby increasing the electoral weight of votes by southern whites.

Minorities tend to be disproportionately located in noncompetitive states, reducing their impact on the overall election and over-representing white voters who have tended to live in the swing states that decide elections.

Americans in U.S. territories cannot vote

Roughly four million Americans in Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Guam, do not have a vote in presidential elections. Only U.S. states (per Article II, Section 1, Clause 2) and Washington, D.C. (per the Twenty-third Amendment) are entitled to electors. Various scholars consequently conclude that the U.S. national-electoral process is not fully democratic. Guam has held non-binding straw polls for president since the 1980s to draw attention to this fact. The Democratic and Republican parties, as well as other third parties, have, however, made it possible for people in U.S. territories to vote in party presidential primaries.

Disadvantages third parties

In practice, the winner-take-all manner of allocating a state's electors generally decreases the importance of minor parties.

Federalism and state power

For many years early in the nation's history, up until the Jacksonian Era (1830s), many states appointed their electors by a vote of the state legislature, and proponents argue that, in the end, the election of the president must still come down to the decisions of each state, or the federal nature of the United States will give way to a single massive, centralized government, to the detriment of the States.

In his 2007 book A More Perfect Constitution, Professor Larry Sabato preferred allocating the electoral college (and Senate seats) in stricter proportion to population while keeping the Electoral College for the benefit of lightly populated swing states and to strengthen the role of the states in federalism.

Willamette University College of Law professor Norman R. Williams has argued that the Constitutional Convention delegates chose the Electoral College to choose the president largely in reaction to the experience during the Confederation period where state governors were often chosen by state legislatures and wanting the new federal government to have an executive branch that was effectively independent of the legislative branch. For example, Alexander Hamilton argued that the Electoral College would prevent sinister bias, foreign interference and domestic intrigue in presidential elections by not permitting members of Congress or any other officer of the United States to serve as electors.

Efforts to abolish or reform

More resolutions have been submitted to amend the U.S. Electoral College mechanism than any other part of the constitution. Since 1800, over 700 proposals to reform or eliminate the system have been introduced in Congress. Proponents of these proposals argued that the electoral college system does not provide for direct democratic election, affords less-populous states an advantage, and allows a candidate to win the presidency without winning the most votes. None of these proposals has received the approval of two thirds of Congress and three fourths of the states required to amend the Constitution. Ziblatt and Levitsky argue that America has by far the most difficult constitution to amend, which is why reform efforts have stalled in America. In addition to constitutional barriers, public debate over reform has increasingly focused on how the Electoral College affects political equality and representation across states.

1969–1970: Bayh–Celler amendment

The closest the United States has come to abolishing the Electoral College occurred during the 91st Congress (1969–1971). The 1968 election resulted in Richard Nixon receiving 301 electoral votes (56% of electors), Hubert Humphrey 191 (35.5%), and George Wallace 46 (8.5%) with 13.5% of the popular vote. However, Nixon had received only 511,944 more popular votes than Humphrey, 43.5% to 42.9%, less than 1% of the national total.

Representative Emanuel Celler (D–New York), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, responded to public concerns over the disparity between the popular vote and electoral vote by introducing House Joint Resolution 681, a proposed Constitutional amendment that would have replaced the Electoral College with a simpler plurality system based on the national popular vote. With this system, the pair of candidates (running for president and vice-president) who had received the highest number of votes would win the presidency and vice presidency provided they won at least 40% of the national popular vote. If no pair received 40% of the popular vote, a runoff election would be held in which the choice of president and vice president would be made from the two pairs of persons who had received the highest number of votes in the first election.

On April 29, 1969, the House Judiciary Committee voted 28 to 6 to approve the proposal. Debate on the proposal before the full House of Representatives ended on September 11, 1969 and was eventually passed with bipartisan support on September 18, 1969, by a vote of 339 to 70.

On September 30, 1969, President Nixon gave his endorsement for adoption of the proposal, encouraging the Senate to pass its version of the proposal, which had been sponsored as Senate Joint Resolution 1 by Senator Birch Bayh (D–Indiana).

On October 8, 1969, the New York Times reported that 30 state legislatures were "either certain or likely to approve a constitutional amendment embodying the direct election plan if it passes its final Congressional test in the Senate." Ratification of 38 state legislatures would have been needed for adoption. The paper also reported that six other states had yet to state a preference, six were leaning toward opposition, and eight were solidly opposed.

Carter proposal

On March 22, 1977, President Jimmy Carter wrote a letter of reform to Congress that also included his expression of abolishing the Electoral College. The letter read in part:My fourth recommendation is that the Congress adopt a Constitutional amendment to provide for direct popular election of the President. Such an amendment, which would abolish the Electoral College, will ensure that the candidate chosen by the voters actually becomes president. Under the Electoral College, it is always possible that the winner of the popular vote will not be elected. This has already happened in three elections, 1824, 1876, and 1888. In the last election, the result could have been changed by a small shift of votes in Ohio and Hawaii, despite a popular vote difference of 1.7 million. I do not recommend a Constitutional amendment lightly. I think the amendment process must be reserved for an issue of overriding governmental significance. But the method by which we elect our President is such an issue. I will not be proposing a specific direct election amendment. I prefer to allow the Congress to proceed with its work without the interruption of a new proposal.

President Carter's proposed reform of the Electoral College was part of the widest reaching political reform bill proposed by a modern president during this time, and in some aspects of the package, it went beyond original expectations. Newspapers like The New York Times saw President Carter's proposal at that time as "a modest surprise" because of the indication of Carter that he would be interested in only eliminating the electors but retaining the electoral vote system in a modified form.

Newspaper reaction to Carter's proposal ranged from some editorials praising the proposal to other editorials, like that in the Chicago Tribune, criticizing the president for proposing the end of the Electoral College.

In a letter to The New York Times, Representative Jonathan B. Bingham (D-New York) highlighted the danger of the "flawed, outdated mechanism of the Electoral College" by underscoring how a shift of fewer than 10,000 votes in two key states would have led to President Gerald Ford winning the 1976 election despite Jimmy Carter's nationwide 1.7 million-vote margin.

Recent proposals to abolish

Since January 3, 2019, joint resolutions have been made proposing constitutional amendments that would replace the Electoral College with the popular election of the president and vice president. Unlike the Bayh–Celler amendment, with its 40% threshold for election, these proposals do not require a candidate to achieve a certain percentage of votes to be elected. Contemporary reform proposals are often discussed alongside research showing that the winner-take-all structure of the Electoral college concentrates campaign activity in a small number of competitive states, while voters in noncompetitive states receive comparatively little attention from presidential campaigns.

National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

As of April 2026, eighteen states plus the District of Columbia have joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Those joining the compact will, acting together if and when reflecting a majority of electors (at least 270), pledge their electors to the winner of the national popular vote. The compact applies Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution, which gives each state legislature the plenary power to determine how it chooses electors.

Some scholars have suggested that Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution requires congressional consent before the compact could be enforceable; thus, any attempted implementation of the compact without congressional consent could face court challenges to its constitutionality. Others have suggested that the compact's legality was strengthened by Chiafalo v. Washington, in which the Supreme Court upheld the power of states to enforce electors' pledges. While critics have argued that it weakens minority state representation and logistically would make mechanisms like recounts much more difficult.

The nineteen adherents of the compact have 222 electors, which is 82% of the 270 required for it to take effect, or be considered justiciable. Support for alternatives such as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has grown alongside polling data showing sustained public support for replacing the Electoral College with a national popular vote.

Litigation based on the 14th amendment

It has been argued by the advocacy group Equal Citizens that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution bars the winner-takes-all apportionment of electors by the states. According to this argument, the votes of the losing party are discarded entirely, thereby leading to an unequal position between different voters in the same state. Lawsuits have been filed to this end in California, Massachusetts, Texas and South Carolina, though all have been unsuccessful.