1 Total Isn't Electoral It's election night. You're anxiously watching the results pour in. Which
candidate for president will have the most votes and win the election?
Wait a minute! You're noticing that the news anchors aren't reporting
the results in terms of total votes. They're counting "electoral votes"
instead. You begin to see that all that matters is if someone "wins a
state", not if they're winning the most votes overall. You keep hearing
about "electoral votes". This whole thing is really confusing! What are
electoral votes, and what does this have to do with who wins
the presidency?
What is the Electoral College?
Electoral votes are votes electors from each state in the Electoral
GET YOUR DATES STRAIGHT! College cast. The Electoral College is the process the Founding
Fathers established to choose the president. The process consists of
Citizens vote for president in
selecting or determining electors (the people who vote) from each
November, but electors meet
state, having electors meet in their respective states to vote for
on the first Monday after
president and vice president, and then counting the electoral votes
the second Wednesday in
(which is a job Congress does) to see who wins. Even though citizens
December to cast their votes.
vote for the president in November in what is called the popular
The President of the Senate
vote the number of votes a candidate receives overall it's really
counts the votes on
the electoral vote the votes received by state through the Electoral
January 6 (or the
College-that matters in the vote for president.
day after if the 6th
falls on a Sunday).
How Many Votes Does Each State Get?
There are 538 total electoral votes. To win the presidential election,
a candidate must receive at least 270 of
them. The number of electoral votes that each state has is the sum
of its number of senators (two) and its number of representatives
(determined by the state's population) in Congress. In
addition, the 23rd Amendment gives Washington, D. C. three How MANY VOTES DOES MY
electoral votes.
STATE HAVE?
Because electoral votes are based on representation in
Congress, the number of electoral votes each state has
Do the math! Find out how many
is different. States with small populations who have
representatives your state has in the
just one representative in the House of Representatives
House and then add two senators to
have the minimum number of votes-three. But states
that number
with larger populations have many electoral votes.
California has 55!
My State:
The number of electoral votes a state has doesn't
change very often, but it isn't necessarily set in stone
either. Every ten years, the U. S. conducts a census count
of the population. Significant increases or decreases in
population could lead to a state gaining or losing electors
Based on how the distribution of representatives in
Congress changes.
Representatives
2 Senators
+
Electorale