officially announces the state's electors for the Electoral College. The appointed Electoral College members later meet in the state capital in December to cast their votes.
Summary The president and vice president of the United States are elected by the Electoral College, which consists of 538 electors chosen by the fifty states and
Washington, D.C. Electors are selected by each state's legislature. Since the
1824 election, the majority of states have chosen their presidential electors based on
winner-take-all results in the statewide popular vote on
Election Day. ,
Maine and
Nebraska are exceptions as both use the
congressional district method, Maine since 1972 and in Nebraska since 1992. Many states require an elector to vote for the candidate to which the elector is pledged, but some "faithless electors" have voted for other candidates or refrained from voting. A candidate must receive an
absolute majority of electoral votes (currently 270) to win the presidency or the vice presidency. If no candidate receives a majority in the election for president or vice president, the election is determined via a
contingency procedure established by the
Twelfth Amendment. In such a situation, the House chooses one of the top three presidential electoral vote winners as the president, while the Senate chooses one of the top two vice presidential electoral vote winners as vice president. While an aggregate national popular vote total is calculated by state officials, media organizations, and the
Federal Election Commission, these votes only
indirectly elect the
president and
vice president.
Electors Apportionment A state's number of electors equals the number of representatives plus two electors for the senators the state has in the
United States Congress. Each state is entitled to at least one representative, the remaining number of representatives per state is
apportioned based on their respective populations, determined every ten years by the
United States census. In summary, 153 electors are divided equally among the states and the District of Columbia (3 each), and the remaining 385 are assigned by an apportionment among states. Under the
Twenty-third Amendment,
Washington, D.C., is allocated as many electors as it would have if it were a state but no more electors than the least populous state. Because the least populous state (
Wyoming, in the 2020 census) has three electors, D.C. cannot have more than three electors. Even if D.C. were a state, its population would entitle it to only three electors. Based on its population per electoral vote, D.C. has the third highest per capita Electoral College representation, after Wyoming and Vermont. Currently, there are 538 electors, based on 435 representatives, 100 senators from the fifty states and three electors from Washington, D.C. The six states with the most electors are
California (54),
Texas (40),
Florida (30),
New York (28),
Illinois (19), and
Pennsylvania (19). The District of Columbia and the six least populous states—
Alaska,
Delaware,
North Dakota,
South Dakota,
Vermont, and
Wyoming—have three electors each.
Nominations The custom of allowing recognized
political parties to select a
slate of prospective electors developed early. In contemporary practice, each
presidential-vice presidential ticket has an associated slate of potential electors. Then on Election Day, the voters select a ticket and thereby select the associated electors.
Selection process Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution requires each state legislature to determine how electors for the state are to be chosen, but it disqualifies any person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, from being an elector. Under
Section3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, any person who has sworn an
oath to support the United States Constitution in order to hold either a state or federal office, and later rebelled against the United States directly or by giving assistance to those doing so, is disqualified from being an elector. Congress may remove this disqualification by a two-thirds vote in each house. All states currently choose presidential electors by popular vote. As of 2020, eight states name the electors on the ballot. Mostly, the "short ballot" is used. The short ballot displays the names of the candidates for president and vice president, rather than the names of prospective electors. Some states support voting for
write-in candidates. Those that do may require pre-registration of write-in candidacy, with designation of electors being done at that time. Since 1992, all but two states have followed the method of allocating electors by which every person named on the slate for the ticket winning the statewide popular vote are named as presidential electors.
Maine and
Nebraska are the only states not using this method. In those states, the winner of the popular vote in each of its
congressional districts is awarded one elector, and the winner of the statewide vote is then awarded the state's remaining two electors. This method has been used in Maine since 1972 and in Nebraska since 1992. The
Supreme Court previously upheld the power for a state to choose electors on the basis of congressional districts, holding that states possess
plenary power to decide how electors are appointed in
McPherson v. Blacker, . The Tuesday following the first Monday in November has been fixed as the day for holding federal elections, called the
Election Day. After the election, each state prepares seven Certificates of Ascertainment, each listing the candidates for president and vice president, their pledged electors, and the total votes each candidacy received. One certificate is sent, as soon after Election Day as practicable, to the
National Archivist in Washington. The Certificates of Ascertainment are mandated to carry the state seal and the signature of the governor, or
mayor of D.C.
Meetings The Electoral College never meets as one body. Electors meet in their respective
state capitals (electors for the District of Columbia meet within the District) on the same day (set by Congress as the Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December) at which time they cast their electoral votes on separate ballots for president and vice president. • One is sent by
registered mail to the
President of the Senate (who usually is the incumbent
vice president of the United States); • Two are sent by registered mail to the
Archivist of the United States; • Two are sent to the
state's secretary of state; and • One is sent to the chief judge of the
United States district court where those electors met. A staff member of the president of the Senate collects the certificates of vote as they arrive and prepares them for the joint session of the Congress. The certificates are arranged—unopened—in alphabetical order and placed in two special mahogany boxes.
Alabama through
Missouri (including the
District of Columbia) are placed in one box and
Montana through
Wyoming are placed in the other box. Before 1950, the
Secretary of State's office oversaw the certifications. Since then, the Office of Federal Register in the Archivist's office reviews them to make sure the documents sent to the archive and Congress match, and that all formalities have been followed, sometimes requiring states to correct the documents. A "faithless elector" is one who does not cast an electoral vote for the candidate of the party for whom that elector pledged to vote. Faithless electors are comparatively rare because electors are generally chosen among those who are already personally committed to a party and party's candidate. Thirty-three
states plus the
District of Columbia have laws against faithless electors, which were first enforced after the 2016 election, where
ten electors voted or attempted to vote contrary to their pledges. Faithless electors have never changed the outcome of a U.S. election for president. Altogether, 23,529 electors have taken part in the Electoral College as of the 2016 election. Only 165 electors have cast votes for someone other than their party's nominee. Of that group, 71 did so because the nominee had died63 Democratic Party electors in
1872, when presidential nominee
Horace Greeley died; and eight Republican Party electors in
1912, when vice presidential nominee
James S. Sherman died. While faithless electors have never changed the outcome of any presidential election, there are two occasions where the vice presidential election has been influenced by faithless electors: • In the
1796 election, 18 electors pledged to the Federalist Party ticket cast their first vote as pledged for John Adams, electing him president, but did not cast their second vote for his running mate Thomas Pinckney. As a result, Adams attained 71 electoral votes, Jefferson received 68, and Pinckney received 59, meaning Jefferson, rather than Pinckney, became vice president. • In the
1836 election, Virginia's 23 electors, who were pledged to
Richard Mentor Johnson, voted instead for former U.S. senator
William Smith, which left Johnson one vote short of the majority needed to be elected. In accordance with the Twelfth Amendment, a contingent election was held in the Senate between the top two receivers of electoral votes, Johnson and
Francis Granger, for vice president, with Johnson being elected on the first ballot. Some constitutional scholars argued that state restrictions would be struck down if challenged based on Article II and the Twelfth Amendment. However, the
United States Supreme Court has consistently ruled that state restrictions are allowed under the Constitution. In
Ray v. Blair, , the court ruled in favor of state laws requiring electors to pledge to vote for the winning candidate, as well as removing electors who refuse to pledge. As stated in the ruling, electors are acting as a functionary of the state, not the federal government. In
Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), and a related case, the court held that electors must vote in accord with their state's laws. Faithless electors also may face censure from their political party, as they are usually chosen based on their perceived party loyalty.
Joint session of Congress The
Twelfth Amendment mandates Congress assemble in
joint session to count the electoral votes and declare the winners of the election. The session is ordinarily required to take place on January6 in the calendar year immediately following the meetings of the presidential electors. Since the
Twentieth Amendment, the newly elected joint Congress declares the winner of the election. All elections before
1936 were determined by the outgoing House. The
Office of the Federal Register is charged with administering the Electoral College. meaning the votes from the state in question are not counted. Individual votes can also be rejected, and are also not counted. If there are no objections or all objections are overruled, the presiding officer simply includes a state's votes, as declared in the certificate of vote, in the official tally. After the certificates from all states are read and the respective votes are counted, the presiding officer simply announces the final state of the vote. This announcement concludes the joint session and formalizes the recognition of the president-elect and of the vice president-elect. The senators then depart from the House chamber. The final tally is printed in the Senate and House journals.
Historical objections and rejections Objections to the electoral vote count are rarely raised, although it has occurred a few times. • In
1864, all votes from Louisiana and Tennessee were rejected because of the
American Civil War. • In
1872, all votes from Arkansas and Louisiana plus three of the eleven electoral votes from Georgia were rejected, due to allegations of electoral fraud, and due to submitting votes for
a candidate who had died. • After the crises of the
1876 election, where in a few states it was claimed there were two competing state governments, and thus competing slates of electors, Congress adopted the Electoral Count Act to regularize objection procedure. • During the vote count in 2001 after the close
2000 presidential election between Governor
George W. Bush of Texas and Vice President
Al Gore. The election had been controversial, and its outcome was decided by the court case
Bush v. Gore. Gore, who as vice president was required to preside over his own Electoral College defeat (by five electoral votes), denied the objections, all of which were raised by representatives and would have favored his candidacy, after no senators would agree to jointly object. • Objections were raised in the vote count of the
2004 election, alleging voter suppression and machine irregularities in Ohio, and on that occasion one representative and one senator objected, following protocols mandated by the Electoral Count Act. The joint session was suspended as outlined in these protocols, and the objections were quickly disposed of and rejected by both houses of Congress. • Eleven objections were raised during
the vote count for the
2016 election, all by various Democratic representatives. As no senator joined the representatives in any objection, all objections were blocked by Vice President
Joe Biden. • In the
2020 election, there were
two objections, and the proceeding was interrupted by an
attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of outgoing President
Donald Trump. Objections to the votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania were each raised by a House member and a senator, and triggered separate debate in each chamber, but were soundly defeated. A few House members raised objections to the votes from Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin, but they could not move forward because no senator joined in those objections. The language requiring an absolute majority of Senate votes precludes the sitting vice president from breaking any tie that might occur, although some academics and journalists have speculated to the contrary. The only time the Senate chose the vice president was in
1837. In that instance, the Senate adopted an alphabetical
roll call and voting aloud. The rules further stated, "[I]f a majority of the number of senators shall vote for either the said
Richard M. Johnson or
Francis Granger, he shall be declared by the presiding officer of the Senate constitutionally elected Vice President of the United States"; the Senate chose Johnson.
Deadlocked election Section 3 of the Twentieth Amendment specifies that if the House of Representatives has not chosen a
president-elect in time for the inauguration (noon
EST on January 20), then the
vice president-elect becomes
acting president until the House selects a president. Section3 also specifies that Congress may statutorily provide for who will be acting president if there is neither a president-elect nor a vice president-elect in time for the inauguration. Under the
Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the
Speaker of the House would become acting president until either the House selects a president or the Senate selects a vice president. Neither of these situations has ever arisen to this day.
Continuity of government and peaceful transitions of power In
Federalist No. 68, Alexander Hamilton argued that one concern that led the Constitutional Convention to create the Electoral College was to ensure
peaceful transitions of power and
continuity of government during
transitions between presidential administrations. While recognizing that the question had not been presented in the case, the
U.S. Supreme Court stated in the majority opinion in
Chiafalo v. Washington (2020) that "nothing in this opinion should be taken to permit the States to bind electors to a deceased candidate" after noting that more than one-third of the cumulative
faithless elector votes in U.S. presidential elections history were cast during the
1872 presidential election when
Liberal Republican Party and
Democratic Party nominee
Horace Greeley died after the
polls were held and vote tabulations were completed by the states but before the Electoral College cast its ballots, and acknowledging concerns about the potential turmoil that the death of a presidential candidate between Election Day and the Electoral College meetings could cause. In 1872, Greeley carried the popular vote in 6 states (
Georgia,
Kentucky,
Maryland,
Missouri,
Tennessee, and
Texas) and had 66 electoral votes pledged to him. After his death on November 29, 1872, 63 of the electors pledged to him voted faithlessly, while 3 votes (from Georgia) that remained pledged to him were rejected at the Electoral College vote count on February 12, 1873, on the grounds that he had died. Greeley's running mate,
B. Gratz Brown, still received the 3 electoral votes from Georgia for vice president that were rejected for Greeley. This brought Brown's number of electoral votes for vice president to 47 since he still received all 28 electoral votes from Maryland, Tennessee, and Texas, and 16 other electoral votes from Georgia, Kentucky, and Missouri in total. The other 19 electors from the latter states voted faithlessly for vice president. During the
presidential transition following the
1860 presidential election,
Abraham Lincoln had to arrive in Washington, D.C. in disguise and on an altered train schedule after the
Pinkerton National Detective Agency found evidence that suggested a
secessionist plot to assassinate Lincoln would be attempted in Baltimore. During the
presidential transition following the
1928 presidential election, an
Argentine anarchist group plotted to assassinate
Herbert Hoover while Hoover was traveling through
Central and
South America and crossing the
Andes from
Chile by train. The plotters were arrested before the attempt was made. During the
presidential transition following the
1932 presidential election,
Giuseppe Zangara attempted to assassinate
Franklin D. Roosevelt by gunshot while Roosevelt was giving an impromptu speech in a car in
Miami, but instead killed
Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who was a passenger in the car, and wounded 5 bystanders. During the
presidential transition following the
1960 presidential election,
Richard Paul Pavlick plotted to assassinate
John F. Kennedy while Kennedy was vacationing in
Palm Beach, Florida, by detonating a dynamite-laden car where Kennedy was staying. Pavlick delayed his attempt and was arrested and
committed to a mental hospital. During the
presidential transition following the
2008 presidential election,
Barack Obama was targeted in separate security incidents by
an assassination plot and
a death threat, after an
assassination plot in Denver during the
2008 Democratic National Convention and an
assassination plot in Tennessee during the election were prevented. During the
presidential transition following the
2020 presidential election, as a result of then-president
Donald Trump's false insistence that he had won the election, the
General Services Administration did not declare Biden the winner until November 23. The subsequent
attack on the United States Capitol on January 6 caused delays in the
counting of electoral votes to certify Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election, but was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing the count from occurring. Ratified in 1933, Section 3 of the 20th Amendment requires that if a
president-elect dies before
Inauguration Day, that the
vice president-elect becomes the president. Akhil Amar has noted that the explicit text of the 20th Amendment does not specify when the candidates of the winning presidential ticket officially become the president-elect and vice president-elect, and that the text of Article II, Section I and the 12th Amendment suggests that candidates for president and vice president are only formally elected upon the Electoral College vote count. Conversely, a 2020 report issued by the
Congressional Research Service (CRS), stated that the balance of scholarly opinion has concluded that the winning presidential ticket is formally elected as soon as the majority of the electoral votes they receive are cast, according to the 1932 House committee report on the 20th Amendment. If a vacancy on a presidential ticket occurs before Election Day—as in
1912 when
Republican nominee for Vice President James S. Sherman died less than a week before the election and was replaced by
Nicholas Murray Butler at the Electoral College meetings, and in
1972 when
Democratic nominee for Vice President Thomas Eagleton withdrew his nomination less than three weeks after the
Democratic National Convention and was replaced by
Sargent Shriver—the internal rules of the political parties apply for filling vacancies. If a vacancy on a presidential ticket occurs between Election Day and the Electoral College meetings, the 2020 CRS report notes that most legal commentators have suggested that political parties would still follow their internal rules for filling the vacancies. However, in 1872, the
Democratic National Committee did not meet to name a replacement for Horace Greeley, and the 2020 CRS report notes that presidential electors may argue that they are permitted to vote faithlessly if a vacancy occurs between Election Day and the Electoral College meetings since they were pledged to vote for a specific candidate. Under the
Presidential Succession Clause of Article II, Section I, Congress is delegated the power to "by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected." Pursuant to the Presidential Succession Clause, the
2nd United States Congress passed the
Presidential Succession Act of 1792 that required a
special election by the Electoral College in the case of a dual vacancy in the presidency and vice presidency. Despite vacancies in the Vice Presidency from 1792 to 1886, the special election requirement would be repealed with the rest of the Presidential Succession Act of 1792 by the
49th United States Congress in passing the
Presidential Succession Act of 1886. In a special message to the
80th United States Congress calling for revisions to the Presidential Succession Act of 1886, President
Harry S. Truman proposed restoring special elections for dual vacancies in the Presidency and Vice Presidency. While most of Truman's proposal was included in the final version of the
Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the restoration of special elections for dual vacancies was not. Along with six other recommendations related to presidential succession, the
Continuity of Government Commission recommended restoring special elections for president in the event of a dual vacancy in the presidency and vice presidency due to a catastrophic
terrorist attack or
nuclear strike, in part because all members of the
presidential line of succession live and work in Washington, DC, and also due to ambiguities in the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 over whether acting cabinet secretaries are included in the line of the succession. Under the 12th Amendment, presidential electors are still required to meet and cast their ballots for president and vice president within their respective states. The CRS noted in a separate 2020 report that members of the presidential line of succession, after the vice president, only become an acting president under the Presidential Succession Clause and Section 3 of the 20th Amendment, rather than fully succeeding to the presidency.
Current electoral vote distribution : *
The Twenty-third Amendment grants the same number of electors as the least populous state. This has always been three. : ** ''Two of Maine's four electors and three of Nebraska's five are distributed using the
Congressional district method. The other two in each state are elected as a general ticket based on statewide vote.'' == Chronological table ==