What is the Electoral College? What to know for Election Day 2024
After months of campaigning, a candidate swap and plenty more news, Election Day is here and votes are being counted.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are facing off to see who will be in control of the White House for the next four years.
One of the most, if not the most, vital parts of Election Night is a famous number: 270. These are the Electoral College votes a candidate needs to win the presidency. The system has been around since our first election when George Washington carried all 69 electoral votes.
Five presidents in history have lost the popular vote but still have become president by winning the Electoral College. The most recent to do so is a familiar face, former President Donald Trump back in 2016.
Election Day live updates: Latest news and results from the 2024 presidential election
But what is the Electoral College? Why 270 votes? With the election upon us, here is what to know.
What is the Electoral College and how does it work?
The college is the way American voters indirectly choose the next president and vice president through each state's electors. There are 538 votes up for grabs between all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to the National Archives.
In order to win, a candidate needs to secure 270 electoral votes which constitutes the majority of the Electoral College.
According to the National Archives, before a general election, each candidate running for president chooses a slate of electors for every state. If the candidate is declared the winner in the state, their slate is then able to cast their vote in the Electoral College.
Most states are winner-take-all, but in Nebraska and Maine, the votes are handed out based on which candidate wins each of the state’s congressional districts. In 2020, Joe Biden took one out of the five votes in Nebraska while Trump took one out of the four votes in Maine.
When was the Electoral College created?
The Electoral College was conceived of and adopted at the 1787 Constitutional Convention.
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College in the Constitution as a compromise between the proposal of electing a president by a vote in Congress and electing the president by a popular vote.
How many Electoral College votes does each state have?
Each state is given Electoral College votes based on how many members of Congress they have, which is determined by the Census. Smaller states like Vermont and Wyoming get three votes, as they only have one House of Representatives member and two senators.
The largest state, California, gets 54 Electoral College votes. Although Washington D.C. does not have any members of Congress, it still receives three Electoral College votes.
What happens if there’s an Electoral College tie?
In the unlikely event that there is a 269 to 269 tie in the Electoral College, a complicated process will begin to churn.
First, the newly elected members of the House of Representatives would gather to vote for the new president. Here, each state’s delegation would get one vote. For example, California’s 52 House of Representatives members would have one vote the same as Wyoming’s single member, according to USA.gov.
Then, the Senate would gather to vote for the new vice president, so theoretically, a Harris-Vance or a Trump-Walz administration could be possible.
In the Senate, every senator would have their own vote with a simple majority needed to choose a winner.
This article has been updated to add new information.
Contributing: Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected] and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is the Electoral College? How does it work? Here's what to know