electoral college

The Electoral College is the group of presidential electors formed every four years in the United States solely to vote for the president and vice president. It is not a physical place but a constitutional process outlined in Article Two of the U.S. Constitution. Each state appoints electors equal to its total number of Senators (always 2) plus its number of House Representatives, with the District of Columbia having 3 electors, making 538 electors in total. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to win the presidency. Voters in each state actually vote for a slate of electors pledged to their candidate of choice. Almost all states use a winner-takes-all system where the candidate with the most votes in that state receives all its electoral votes, except Maine and Nebraska, which allocate some electors by congressional district. Electors meet in their state capitals in December to cast separate ballots for president and vice president. If no candidate gets a majority of electoral votes, the House chooses the president, and the Senate chooses the vice president. The Electoral College was established as a compromise between electing the president by a popular vote or by Congress, aiming for a balance between large and small states. While electors generally vote according to their pledge, some states have laws binding them, and "faithless electors" who vote differently are rare and have never changed an election outcome. In summary, the Electoral College is the constitutional mechanism for electing the U.S. president and vice president through elected electors representing states' congressional representation, requiring 270 electoral votes to win.