When Americans vote for a President and Vice President, they are actually choosing presidential electors, known collectively as the electoral college. It is these officials who choose the President and Vice President of the United States. The complex elements comprising the electoral college system are responsible for election of the President and Vice President.
The 2016 presidential contest was noteworthy for the first simultaneous occurrence in presidential election history of four rarely occurring electoral college eventualities. These included (1) the election of a President and Vice President who received fewer popular votes than their major opponents; (2) the actions of seven “faithless electors,” who voted for candidates other than those to whom they were pledged; (3) the split allocation of electoral votes in Maine, which uses the district system to allocate electors; and (4) objections to electoral votes at the joint session of Congress to count the votes. These events are examined in detail in the body of this report.
Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, as modified in 1804 by the Twelfth Amendment, sets the requirements for election of the President and Vice President. It authorizes each state to appoint, by whatever means the legislature chooses, a number of electors equal to the combined total of its Senate and House of Representatives delegations, for a contemporary total of 538, including 3 electors for the District of Columbia. For over 150 years, the states have universally required that electors be chosen by the voters. Anyone may serve as an elector, except Members of Congress and persons holding offices of “Trust or Profit” under the Constitution.
Every presidential election year, political parties and independent candidacies nominate their national candidates for President and Vice President. In each state where they are entitled to be on the ballot, they also nominate a group (a “slate” or “ticket”) of candidates for the office of elector that is equal in number to the electoral votes to which the state is entitled.
On election day, Tuesday after the first Monday in November (November 3 in 2020), when voters cast a single vote for their preferred candidates, they are actually voting for the slate of electors in their state pledged to those candidates. In 48 states and the District of Columbia, the entire slate of electors winning the most popular votes in the state is elected, a practice known as “winner-take-all” or “the general ticket” system. Maine and Nebraska use an alternative method, the “district system,” which awards two electors to the popular vote winners statewide, and one to the popular vote winners in each congressional district.
Electors assemble in their respective states on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December (December 14 in 2020). They are expected, but not constitutionally bound, to vote for the candidates they represent. The electors cast separate ballots for President and Vice President, after which the electoral college ceases to exist until the next presidential election.
State electoral vote results are reported to Congress and other designated authorities; they are then counted and declared at a joint session of Congress held on January 6 of the year after the election; Congress may, however, change this date by joint resolution. A majority of electoral votes (currently 270 of 538) is required to win, but the results submitted by any state are open to challenge at the joint session, as provided by law.
Past proposals for change by constitutional amendment have included various reform options and direct popular election, which would eliminate the electoral college system, but no substantive action on this issue has been taken in Congress for more than 20 years. At present, however, a non-governmental organization, the National Popular Vote (NPV) campaign, proposes to reform the electoral college by action taken at the state level through an interstate compact; 10 states and the District of Columbia have approved the NPV compact to date.
For further information on contemporary proposals to reform or eliminate the electoral college, please consult CRS Report R43824, Electoral College Reform: Contemporary Issues for Congress, and CRS Report R43823, The National Popular Vote Initiative: Direct Election of the President by Interstate Compact.
Step-by-step explanation:
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