How the Electoral College actually works.

Constitutional basis

Each state receives a number of electors equal to its U.S. Representatives plus its U.S. Senators. The 538 total is composed of 435 Representatives + 100 Senators + 3 D.C. members (added by the 23rd Amendment in 1961). Reapportionment happens every ten years based on the census.

How electors are selected

Political parties nominate their own elector candidates. They are typically activists, officeholders, or major donors. Methods vary widely:

• Some states use district or state party conventions.
• Pennsylvania allows the presidential candidate to nominate them directly.

Election Day itself is a federal date. "the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in presidential election years". and only Congress can change it.

Winner-take-all explained

Of the 51 jurisdictions casting electoral votes, 48 use winner-take-all: 100% of a state's electoral votes go to whichever candidate wins the popular vote in that state. regardless of margin.

Only Maine and Nebraska use a congressional-district method: one elector per congressional district plus two statewide. This produced unusual splits:

• 2008 Nebraska: 4–1 split (McCain–Obama; Obama won District 2)
• 2016 Maine: 3–1 split (Clinton–Trump; Trump won District 2)

When and how electors vote

The 538 electors meet in their state capitals (and DC) in mid-December. A 270-vote majority. that is, 50% + 1 of 538. is required to elect the President and Vice President. The 2020 meeting, for example, was held Monday, December 14.

The mid-December date stems from federal law established in 1934, after the 20th Amendment moved Inauguration Day from March 4 to January 20.

No federal constitutional right to vote for President

This is the part most Americans don't know:

"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…."

U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 2

Voters have no federal constitutional right to vote for President. only the right granted to them by their own state legislature.

Supreme Court precedent

McPherson v. Blacker (1892)

"The constitution does not provide that the appointment of electors shall be by popular vote, nor that the electors shall be voted for upon a general ticket, nor that the majority of those who exercise the elective franchise can alone choose the electors."

McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1 (1892)

"In short, the appointment and mode of appointment of electors belong exclusively to the states under the constitution of the United States."

McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1 (1892)

Bush v. Gore (2000)

"The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College."

Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000)

State authority. and why no amendment is needed

State courts have agreed for over a century. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court, in 1919:

"[E]ach state is thereby clothed with the absolute power to appoint electors in such manner as it may see fit, without any interference or control on the part of the federal government, except, of course, in case of attempted discrimination as to race, color, or previous condition of servitude…."

In re Opinion of the Justices, 1919

This is the legal foundation of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact: states already have the power, individually and collectively, to change how their electoral votes are awarded. The compact uses the same Article II authority that produced winner-take-all in the first place.