# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The Founding Fathers established it in the Constitution, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.

What is the process?

The Electoral College process consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress.

How many electors are there? How are they distributed among the States?

The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your State has the same number of electors as it does Members in its Congressional delegation: one for each Member in the House of Representatives plus two Senators. Read more about the allocation of electoral votes.

The District of Columbia is allocated 3 electors and treated like a State for purposes of the Electoral College under the 23rd Amendment of the Constitution. For this reason, in the following discussion, the word "State" also refers to the District of Columbia and "Executive" to the State Governors and the Mayor of the District of Columbia.

How are my electors chosen? What are their qualifications? How do they decide who to vote for?

Each candidate running for President in your State has their own group of electors (known as a slate). The slates are generally chosen by the candidate's political party in your State, but State laws vary on how the electors are selected and what their responsibilities are. Read more about the qualifications of the electors and restrictions on who the electors may vote for.

What happens in the general election? Why should I vote?

The general election is held every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. When you vote for a Presidential candidate you are actually voting for your candidate's preferred electors. Learn more about voting for the electors.

Most States have a "winner-take-all" system that awards all electors to the Presidential candidate who wins the State's popular vote. However, Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of "proportional representation." Read more about the allocation of electors among the States.

What happens after the general election?

After the general election, your State's Executive prepares a Certificate of Ascertainment listing the names of all the individuals on the slates for each candidate. The Certificate of Ascertainment also lists the number of votes each individual received and shows which individuals were appointed as your State's electors. Your State's Certificate of Ascertainment is sent to NARA as part of the official records of the Presidential election.

The meeting of the electors takes place on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December after the general election. The electors meet in their respective States, where they cast their votes for President and Vice President on separate ballots. Your State's electors' votes are recorded on a Certificate of Vote, which is prepared at the meeting by the electors. Your State's Certificate of Vote is sent to Congress, where the votes are counted, and to NARA, as part of the official records of the Presidential election.

Each State's electoral votes are counted in a joint session of Congress on the 6th of January in the year following the meeting of the electors. Members of the House and Senate meet in the House Chamber to conduct the official count of electoral votes. The Vice President of the United States, as President of the Senate, presides over the count in a strictly ministerial manner and announces the results of the vote. The President of the Senate then declares which persons, if any, have been elected President and Vice President of the United States.

The President-elect takes the oath of office and is sworn in as President of the United States on January 20th in the year following the general election.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The Founding Fathers established it in the Constitution, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. What is the process?

# data[].attributes.headline
Article: Who favors the Electoral College?

# data[].attributes.subject
Article: Who favors the Electoral College?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 2000 and 2016, the winners of the popular vote lost their bids for U.S. president after receiving fewer Electoral College votes than their opponents. To continue tracking how the public views the U.S. system for presidential elections, we surveyed 8,480 U.S. adults from July 10 to 16, 2023.

Everyone who took part in the current survey is a member of Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP's methodology.

Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology.

The Electoral College has played an outsize role in some recent U.S. elections. And a majority of Americans would welcome a change to the way presidents are elected, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults (65%) say the way the president is elected should be changed so that the winner of the popular vote nationwide wins the presidency. A third favor keeping the current Electoral College system.

Public opinion on this question is essentially unchanged from last year, though Americans' support for using the popular vote to decide the presidency remains higher than it was a few years ago.

Explore Americans' views of the political system

This article draws from our major report on Americans' attitudes about the political system and political representation, conducted July 10-16, 2023. For more, explore:

The current electoral system in the United States allows for the possibility that the winner of the popular vote may not secure enough Electoral College votes to win the presidency. This occurred in both the 2000 and 2016 elections, which were won by George W. Bush and Donald Trump, respectively.

Partisan views over time

Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are far more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to support moving to a popular vote system for presidential elections (82% vs. 47%).

The share of Democrats saying this is nearly identical to last year but higher than in January 2021, a few weeks before President Joe Biden was sworn into office after winning both the Electoral College and the popular vote.

Republicans are fairly divided on this question: 52% support keeping the current Electoral College system, and 47% support moving to a popular vote system. GOP support for moving to a popular vote is the highest it's been in recent years - up from 37% in 2021 and just 27% in the days following the 2016 election.

Party and ideology

Nearly nine-in-ten liberal Democrats (88%) and about three-quarters of conservative and moderate Democrats (77%) say they would prefer presidents to be elected based on the popular vote.

Ideological differences are wider among Republicans. A clear majority - 63% - of conservative Republicans prefer keeping the current system, while 36% would change it.

The balance of opinion reverses among moderate and liberal Republicans (who make up a much smaller share of the Republican coalition). A majority of moderate and liberal Republicans (63%) say they would back the country moving to a popular vote for president.

Age

Younger adults are somewhat more supportive of changing the system than older adults. About seven-in-ten Americans under 50 (69%) support this. That share drops to about six-in-ten (58%) among those 65 and older.

Political engagement

Political engagement - being interested in and paying attention to politics - is associated with views about the Electoral College, particularly among Republicans.

Highly politically engaged Republicans overwhelmingly favor keeping the Electoral College: 72% say this, while 27% support moving to a popular vote system.

Republicans with a moderate level of engagement are more divided, with 51% wanting to keep the system as is and 48% wanting to change it. And a clear majority of Republicans with lower levels of political engagement (70%) back moving to a popular vote.

Differences by engagement are much less pronounced among Democrats. About eight-in-ten Democrats with low (78%) and medium (82%) levels of engagement favor changing the system, as do 86% of highly engaged Democrats.

Note: This is an update of posts previously published on Jan. 27, 2021 (written by Bradley Jones, a former senior researcher), and Aug. 5, 2022 (written by Jocelyn Kiley and Rebecca Salzer, a former intern). Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology.

A note on question wording

In January 2020, Pew Research Center ran a survey experiment that asked this question in two slightly different ways. One used the language that we and other organizations had used in prior years, with the reform option asking about "amending the Constitution so the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide wins the election." The other version asked about "changing the system so the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide wins the election." The January 2020 survey revealed no substantive differences between asking about "amending the Constitution" and "changing the system."

We conducted this experiment in large part because reforming the way presidents are selected does not technically require amending the Constitution. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, for example, could theoretically accomplish it without a constitutional amendment. Since there was no substantive difference in the survey results between the two question wordings, we have adopted the revised wording.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Majority of Americans continue to favor moving away from Electoral College

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
65% of U.S. adults say the way the president is elected should be changed so that the winner of the popular vote nationwide wins the presidency.