COLUMBIA, S.C. — It’s an institution as old as the nation itself, but the Electoral College remains an enigma to many Americans. The Founding Fathers, apprehensive about the unchecked power of the popular vote, added the extra step to the process of choosing a president.
A look at the ins and outs of the Electoral College and how its role could be even more scrutinized this year:
WHO ARE THE ELECTORS?
Their names often aren’t published on ballots, but voters are technically picking a slate of party electors — not the individual candidate — when they cast their ballots.
Each state has as many members of the Electoral College as its number of U.S. House and Senate members combined. The District of Columbia has three electors, making the national total 538.
Typically each party selects as its electors party leaders, elected officials and activists. Each state has different timelines for elector selection, but it generally happens at least a few months before a general election, often as part of state party conventions.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
As election results come in, networks and race callers compile electoral vote totals for candidates. Once someone has won a majority of 270 electoral votes, we theoretically have a president.
But none of it is actually official yet. State officials will certify vote totals in the days after an election, but electors don’t technically cast their votes until about six weeks later, when they meet in their respective capital cities. Electors vote on two ballots, one for president and one for vice president.
About a month later, before a joint session of Congress, the current vice president opens the votes from each state and officially declares the next president.
If no candidate gets a majority, there’s a “contingent election,” under which the U.S. House determines the winner, with each state delegation getting one vote. The U.S. Senate selects the vice president, with each senator getting a single vote.
According to House archives, only two presidential elections, in 1800 and 1824, have been decided this way.
