Why it was Created

Our Founding Fathers, gathered in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention, worried that selecting the President and Vice President by popular vote could be dangerous. Most citizens had little education and might be swayed by unscrupulous demagogues. On the other hand, having Congress make the decision would give the Federal government too much power. (Having just fought the Revolutionary War to break from the English King, the members were leery of centralized power.)  Their solution was instead to let State Legislatures choose Electors who would convene in the Capital to decide the election. But how many Electors would each state get? 

The Impact of Slavery

Southern delegates like James Madison of Virginia, where 60% of its residents were enslaved Black people who couldn’t vote, knew that if slaves were not counted amongst the population when assigning Electors, Southern states would hold less power than those in the North and the proposed approach would not pass. This ushered in the controversial “three-fifths compromise” in which each enslaved Black person was counted as three-fifths of a resident when calculating representatives, Electors and federal taxes.

This compromise was not the Electoral College’s only link to slavery. In 1876, Presidential candidate Samuel Tilden was one vote short of beating Rutherford B. Hayes while 20 more votes remained in dispute. Congress created a bipartisan commission to decide the way forward.

“Why did the Commission decide to hand the election to Hayes, who had lost both the popular and electoral vote? Most historians believe there was a deal brokered between the two parties. The Democrats, whose stronghold was the South, agreed to let Hayes be president in return for the Republicans promising to pull all federal troops from former Confederate states. That’s one of the main reasons why Reconstruction was abandoned…“ History.com, 5 Presidents Who Lost the Popular Vote, But Won the Election.

With the end of Reconstruction, Southern states were free to create the Jim Crow laws that suppressed Black people until the 24^th Amendment passed in 1964, making poll or other taxes that impede voting illegal.

How The Electoral College Works

To win the presidency, the candidate must capture 270 (50% plus 1, or more) of the 538 total Electoral College votes. Each State has the number of Electors equal to their Senators (always two) and Congressional Representatives, which vary by the size of the state’s population. (Another Constitutional Convention compromise reached to balance the rights of smaller and larger states.)

State Legislatures originally selected Electors, who had two votes each. The candidate with the most votes became President and the runner up Vice President. The 12^th Amendment changed the rules so each Elector voted separately for President and Vice President. The 23rd Amendment of 1961 added representatives from the District of Columbia to the Electoral College. Most recently, the Electoral Reform Act of 2023 clarified the rules for selection and replacement of Electors following the storming of the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.

The Brennan Center explains that today the state-level political parties each nominate a slate of Electors, and the party winning the most Presidential votes in their state sends their slate to Washington.

“Members of the Electoral College meet and vote in their respective states on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December after Election Day. Then, on January 6, a joint session of Congress meets at the Capitol to count the electoral votes and declare the outcome of the election, paving the way for the presidential inauguration on January 20.”

No federal law prevents a “faithless” Elector from changing which candidate they support between being selected and finally voting; the consequences are left to each State. (Library of Congress)

On January 6, 2021 protestors, believing the November 2020 election had been stolen from their candidate, stormed the Capitol to prevent the Electoral College from electing the next President and Vice President. This shocking event provoked interest in the formerly obscure Electoral College, and resulted in the Electoral Reform Act of 2023,  which clarified how Electors are to be chosen and replaced.

January 6th also raised questions such as “Do we even need an Electoral College today?” and “Would it be better to simply let the voters choose the next President and Vice President by popular vote?”  See “Is the Electoral College Still Useful?” for some possible answers to consider.