THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

The selection of the President and Vice President of the United States is more complicated than simply counting up the number of votes that each candidate receives on Election Day at the polls and from the absentee and provisional ballots. As provided in the United States Constitution, the Electoral College, rather than the direct vote of citizens, is the body that determines who will be President and Vice President. The Electoral College was designed to give power to the less populous states and to insure that candidates for President and Vice President have sufficient distribution of support from all areas of the nation to govern.

Each state is allocated one elector for every representative that they have in Congress. In Maryland, we have two Senators and eight members of the House of Representatives so we have ten electors in the Electoral College. The smallest states have two senators and one member in the House so they have only three electors. Even though the District of Columbia has no voting members in Congress, it was allotted three electors with the ratification of the 23rd Amendment in 1961. California, the most populous state, has 55 electors.

In the general election, voters are actually casting ballots for electors who are pledged to the candidates who received their vote. In most states, the candidate with the highest number of votes will receive the votes of all the electors from that state. Exceptions to the “winner take all” practice are Maine and Nebraska, where only two electoral votes are cast for the statewide winner. The remaining electoral votes are allocated separately for the candidate with the highest popular vote in each of the state’s Congressional Districts.

On the Monday after the second Wednesday in December, the electors meet in their respective state capitals to cast two ballots – one for President and one for Vice President. The Electoral College includes 535 electors (one for every member in Congress plus three from the District of Columbia). A candidate must receive 270 electoral votes to be elected. If no candidate for President receives that many votes, the House of Representatives picks the winner from the top three vote getters. Each state receives only one vote, regardless of its size. The Senate chooses the Vice President if no candidate receives 270 votes. Senators cast their votes as individuals, not as states.