Here’s why we have an Electoral College and who’s in it
Electoral conquest
Voting is underway and Election Day is Tuesday, so here’s a primer on the fight to reach 270 votes in the Electoral College.
Creating the Electoral College
The term “Electoral College” does not appear in the Constitution. Article 2 of the Constitution and the 12th Amendment refer to electors but not to an Electoral College.
Since the Electoral College process is part of the original design of the Constitution, it would be necessary to pass a constitutional amendment to change this system.
The Electoral Count Act of 1887 came as a reaction to the presidential election of 1876, in which Democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote but lost the presidency to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes because of contested election results in three Southern states under the control of Reconstruction governments.
Congress had no rules in place to deal with such a scenario, so it created an ad hoc commission to decide the presidency and then passed the 1887 law to avoid similar situations in the future.
If a state finalizes its results six days before the Electoral College vote, according to the Electoral Count Act, those results qualify for “safe harbor” status — meaning Congress must treat them as “conclusive” results, even if, for example, a state’s legislature sends in a competing set of results.
2020 and 2024 differences
The Electoral College will meet Dec. 17 to cast the votes for president and vice president of the United States.
Thirteen states gained or lost electoral votes following the 2020 census: Texas gained two; Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon each gained one; and California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia each lost one.
Who are the electors
Each candidate running for president in your state has their own group of electors, known as a slate. The slates are generally chosen by the candidate’s political party in each state, but state laws vary on how the electors are selected and what their responsibilities are.
The electors meet in their respective state capitals on the Tuesday after the second Wednesday of December to cast their votes.
You can find an American Bar Association article on 700 proposals to reform the Electoral College here.
How close was 2020
Democrat Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by just 1.2 percentage points, Wisconsin by six-tenths of a percentage point, Arizona by about a third of a percentage point and Georgia by a quarter of a percentage point. In those states combined, Biden beat incumbent President Donald Trump by fewer than 125,000 votes out of 18.5 million cast.
Past elections
Year | Winner | Loser
2016 | Donald Trump 306 | Hillary Clinton 227
2012 | Barack Obama 332 | Mitt Romney 173
2008 | Barack Obama 365 | John McCain 173
2004 | G.W. Bush 286 | John Kerry 251
2000 | G.W. Bush 271 | Al Gore 266
1996 | Bill Clinton 379 | Bob Dole 159
1992 | Bill Clinton 370 | G.H.W. Bush 168
1988 | G.H.W. Bush 426 | Michael Dukakis 111
1984 | Ronald Reagan 489 | Walter Mondale 13
1980 | Ronald Reagan 297 | Jimmy Carter 240
Five smallest margins
(Since 1824)
Year | State | Winning margin
2000 | Florida | 0.009%
1832 | Maryland | 0.0104
1904 | Maryland | 0.0227
1912 | California | 0.0257
1892 | California | 0.0545
How long for results?
Year | Winner | Days
2000 | Bush 36 | (Gore concedes Dec. 13.)
2004 | Bush | 1 day
2008 | Obama | Election night
2012 | Obama | Election night
2016 | Trump | Election night
2020 | Biden | 41 days (Nov. 3-Dec. 14, however Trump did not publicly concede until Jan. 7.)
Electoral vote history
How much electoral clout each state has had and what party its electors voted for, organized by mostly Republican on top to mostly Democratic below.
Sources: The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, Pew Research Center, The National Archives, The Office of the Federal Register, Bipartisanpolicy.org, The Cook Political Report