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What is the Electoral College? How does it work and what is its role in a US election?

The US presidential election in a nutshell

The American presidential elections are always held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Americans vote for people called 'electors' in their state who are supporting the candidate they want to become president - this process is called the 'Electoral College'.

The more people who live in a state, the more electors there are for that state. So California for example, with a population of 38.8 million, has 55 votes - while Delaware, (pop. 936,000), has just three votes.

There are currently 538 electors in total, corresponding to the 435 Representatives (congressmen and women) and 100 Senators, plus the three additional electors from the District of Columbia. The Constitution prohibits any federal official, elected or appointed, from being an elector.

The candidate with the most electors wins all the state's electoral college votes and the first candidate to win enough states to get to 270 electoral votes is elected to that office.

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Who can become president?

The President of United States can be a man or a woman of any race or any religion, but they must:

  • be at least 35 years old

  • have been born in the US

  • have lived in the US for at least 14 years

The rules also state that one person can only be in the job for a maximum of eight years. (The only exception to this was Franklin D Roosevelt, who was elected for a special third term during the height of World War Two).

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What was the idea behind the Electoral College?

The nation's founders established the Electoral College to ensure the entire country had a more equal say in the choosing of a national president.

In a time when the states were more autonomous and the federal government didn't have as much power as it does today, the framers wanted to offset the chance that a single populous state or region would choose a "favorite son" candidate who would almost exclusively represent the contender's home state and at the expense of other, smaller parts of the country.

How the Electoral College votes are distributed

Electoral College votes: How many does each state get?

What happens if the Electoral College fails to elect a president or vice president?

Each elector is required to cast one vote for president and another vote for vice president.  

If no candidate receives a majority for president then the House of Representatives selects the president, with each state delegation (instead of each representative) having only one vote.

If no candidate receives a majority for vice president, then the Senate will select the vice president, with each senator having one vote.

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How many times has this happened?

On four occasions the Electoral College system has resulted in the election of a candidate who did not receive the most popular votes in the election.

1800, 1824, 1876 and most recently 2000 when 1,784 votes separated Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore in Florida. Gore had won the nationwide popular vote, but needed four more electoral votes.

The dispute over Florida’s 25 electoral votes lasted more than a month with the Supreme Court ultimately halting recounts ordered by Florida’s top court.

That decision left Bush’s 537-vote margin intact, out of nearly 6 million votes cast in the state.

The use of an Electoral College system therefore means that a candidate can win the popular vote and lose the election.