What makes up the 538 electoral votes

Each state has a number of electoral votes equal to the combined total of its congressional delegation, and each state legislature is free to determine the method it will use to select its own electors. Currently, all states select electors through a popular vote although how that vote works can differ , but that was not always the case throughout American history. In many states, the state legislature selected electors, a practice which was common until the mids.

The following is a summary of how the Electoral College will work in the presidential election:. The U. Constitution does not specify procedures for the nomination of candidates for presidential elector. The two most common methods the states have adopted are nomination by state party convention and by state party committee. Generally, the parties select members known for their loyalty and service to the party, such as party leaders, state and local elected officials and party activists.

However, in most states, electors' names are not printed on the ballot. All 50 states and the District of Columbia use one of two methods for awarding their electoral votes:. In 48 states and the District of Columbia, when a candidate for president wins a state's popular vote, that party's slate of electors will be the ones to cast the vote for president of the United States in December.

For example, Florida has 29 electoral votes. These 29 people will gather on Dec. Maine and Nebraska are the only states that do not use a winner-take-all system.

Instead, in these two states, one electoral vote is awarded to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in each congressional district, and the remaining two electoral votes are awarded to the candidates receiving the most votes statewide.

This is known as the district system. It is possible under the district system to split the electoral vote for the state. Alternatively, a candidate could win by a landslide and still pick up the same number of electoral votes. It's therefore possible for a candidate to become president by winning a number of tight races in certain states, despite having fewer votes across the country. There are only two states Maine and Nebraska which divide up their electoral college votes according to the proportion of votes each candidate receives.

This is why presidential candidates target specific "swing states" - states where the vote could go either way - rather than trying to win over as many voters as possible across the country. Every state they win gets them closer to the electoral college votes they need. What information do we collect from this quiz?

Privacy notice. In fact, two out of the last five elections were won by candidates who had fewer votes from the general public than their rivals. It is possible for candidates to be the most popular candidate among voters nationally, but still fail to win enough states to gain electoral votes. In , Donald Trump had almost three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, but won the presidency because the electoral college gave him a majority.

In , George W Bush won with electoral votes, although Democrat candidate Al Gore won the popular vote by more than half a million. Only three other presidents have been elected without winning the popular vote, all of them in the 19th Century: John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B Hayes and Benjamin Harrison.

When the US constitution was being drawn up in , a national popular vote to elect a president was practically impossible. This was because of the size of the country and the difficulty of communication.

At the same time, there was little enthusiasm for allowing the president to be chosen by lawmakers in the capital, Washington DC. So, the framers of the constitution created the electoral college, with each state choosing electors. Smaller states favoured the system as it gave them more of a voice than a nationwide popular vote to decide the president. This has the convenient feature of placing an odd number of total electors in the Electoral College, which means that an Electoral College tie will be impossible in a two-candidate race.

Voting Rights Act, you might have sometimes heard it said that the Congress was trading a presumably Democratic vote in D. This is not technically true. All the measure does is apportion one additional vote in the House between the 50 states based on the existing formula.

It just so happened that, under that formula, Utah got the the short end of the stick and was the next state in line for an additional Congressman anyway.

For the th Congress, which will be elected in and whose membership is still determined by the Census, Utah will gain an additional elected member.