What Is The Electoral College PDF

Name: Date: What is the Electoral College? The process by which the United States elects its president is a very important one. The founders of the U.S. created the process, and it can be found in Article II of the United State...

Name: Date: What is the Electoral College? The process by which the United States elects its president is a very important one. The founders of the U.S. created the process, and it can be found in Article II of the United States Constitution. When a U.S. citizen casts a vote for president, they aren’t directly voting for president. They are actually voting for someone else to cast their vote. That “someone else” is called an “elector.” Electors are representatives that have pledged to vote for the same candidate. Those electors are part of something called the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a process, not a place. It consists of 538 electors from each state; one for each of the 435 members of the House of Representatives (determined by the states’ population) plus one for each of the 100 senators (each state gets two). Another three electors represent the District of Columbia. It takes 270 of the possible 538 electoral votes to win an election. Each state’s legislators decide how their electors will be chosen. In each state’s political parties, a list of electors is nominated. Usually these electors pledge to support their party’s nominee for president and vice president. Every four years, during a presidential election, voters go to the polls to choose the electors in their states. However, many states don’t list the names of their electors on the ballot. The voters only see the names of the candidates for president and vice president. Even though the electors names may not be on the ballot, voters who vote for their party’s candidate for president are actually voting for their party’s electors in their state. This voting by U.S. citizens is called the popular vote. © 16