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Fast Facts
The founders struggled for months to devise a way to select the President and Vice President. The Electoral College resulted from this debate.
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Electoral College Fast Facts
Established in Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, the Electoral College is the formal body which elects the President and Vice President of the United States. Each state has as many "electors" in the Electoral College as it has Representatives and Senators in the United States Congress, and the District of Columbia has three electors. When voters go to the polls in a Presidential election, they actually vote for the slate of electors who have vowed to cast their ballots for that ticket in the Electoral College.
Electors
Most states require that all electoral votes go to the candidate who receives the most votes in that state. After state election officials certify the popular vote of each state, the winning slate of electors meet in the state capital and cast two ballots—one for Vice President and one for President. Electors cannot vote for a Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate who both hail from an elector’s home state. For instance, if both candidates come from New York, New York’s electors may vote for one of the candidates, but not both. In this hypothetical scenario, however, Delaware’s electors may vote for both New York candidates. This requirement is a holdover from early American history when one of the country’s major political fault lines divided big states from small states. The founders hoped this rule would prevent the largest states from dominating presidential elections.
About this object The contested 1876 Presidential election brought Senators, and the electoral certificates under investigation, into the House Chamber.
- Maine and Nebraska employ a “district system” in which two at-large electors vote for the winner of the state’s popular vote and one elector votes for the popular winner in each congressional district.
Although it is not unconstitutional for electors to vote for someone other than those to whom they pledged their support, many states, as well as the District of Columbia, “bind” electors to their candidate using oaths and fines. During the nineteenth century, “faithless electors”—those who broke their pledge and voted for someone else—were rare, but not uncommon, particularly when it came to Vice Presidents. In the modern era, faithless electors are rarer still, and have never determined the outcome of a presidential election.
- There has been one faithless elector in each of the following elections: 1948, 1956, 1960, 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1988. A blank ballot was cast in 2000. In 2016, seven electors broke with their state on the presidential ballot and six did so on the vice presidential ballot.
Procedure
Since the mid-20th century, Congress has met in a Joint Session every four years on January 6 at 1:00 p.m. to tally votes in the Electoral College. The sitting Vice President presides over the meeting and opens the votes from each state in alphabetical order. He passes the votes to four tellers—two from the House and two from the Senate—who announce the results. House tellers include one Representative from each party and are appointed by the Speaker. At the end of the count, the Vice President then announces the name of the next President.
- With the ratification of the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution (and starting with the 75th Congress in 1937), the electoral votes are counted before the newly sworn-in Congress, elected the previous November.
- The date of the count was changed in 1957, 1985, 1989, 1997, 2009, and 2013. Sitting Vice Presidents John C. Breckinridge (1861), Richard Nixon (1961), Al Gore (2001), Mike Pence (2021), and Kamala Harris (2025), all announced that they had lost their own bid for the Presidency.
Objections
About this object The House and Senate met in a Joint Session on February 12, 1913, to count Electoral College votes for the 1912 presidential election.
- Objections to the Electoral College votes were recorded in 1969, 2005, and 2021. In all cases, the House and Senate rejected the objections and the votes in question were counted.
Amending the Process
Originally, the Electoral College provided the Constitutional Convention with a compromise between two main proposals: the popular election of the President and the election of the President by Congress.
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Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives About this object The 1953 electoral vote count declared Dwight D. Eisenhower the winner.
- Prior to 1804, electors made no distinction between candidates when voting for president and vice president; the candidate with the majority of votes became President and the candidate with the second-most votes became Vice President. The Twelfth Amendment—proposed in 1803 and ratified in 1804—changed that original process, requiring electors to separate their votes and denote who they voted for as President and Vice President. See Electoral College and Indecisive Elections for more information.
- The District of Columbia has had three electors since the Twenty-third Amendment was ratified in 1961.
There have been other attempts to change the system, particularly after cases in which a candidate wins the popular vote, but loses in the Electoral College.
- Five times a candidate has won the popular vote and lost the election. Andrew Jackson in 1824 (to John Quincy Adams); Samuel Tilden in 1876 (to Rutherford B. Hayes); Grover Cleveland in 1888 (to Benjamin Harrison); Al Gore in 2000 (to George W. Bush); Hillary Clinton in 2016 (to Donald J. Trump).
The closest Congress has come to amending the Electoral College since 1804 was during the 91st Congress (1969–1971) when the House passed H.J. Res. 681 which would have eliminated the Electoral College altogether and replaced it with the direct election of a President and Vice President (and a run off if no candidate received more than 40 percent of the vote). The resolution cleared the House 338 to 70, but failed to pass the Senate.
About this object This pass for the Electoral College's 1937 vote count was used again the same day for the President's annual message.
Contingent Elections
In the case of an Electoral College deadlock or if no candidate receives the majority of votes, a “contingent election” is held. The election of the President goes to the House of Representatives. Each state delegation casts a single vote for one of the top three contenders from the initial election to determine a winner.
- Only two Presidential elections (1800 and 1824) have been decided in the House.
- Though not officially a contingent election, in 1876, South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana submitted certificates of elections for both candidates. A bipartisan commission of Representatives, Senators, and Supreme Court Justices, reviewed the ballots and awarded all three state’s electoral votes to Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, who won the presidency by a single electoral vote.
- See Electoral College and Indecisive Elections for more information on Contingent Elections.
Dates on Which Congress Met in a Joint Session to Count the Electoral Votes
| Congress | Date | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1st Congress (1789–1791) | April 6, 1789 | New York City |
| 2nd Congress (1791–1793) | February 13, 1793 | Philadelphia |
| 4th Congress (1795–1797) | February 8, 1787 | Philadelphia |
| 6th Congress (1799–1801)1 | February 11, 1801 | Washington, DC |
| 8th Congress (1803–1805) | February 13, 1805 | Washington, DC |
| 10th Congress (1807–1809) | February 8, 1809 | Washington, DC |
| 12th Congress (1811–1813) | February 10, 1813 | Washington, DC |
| 14th Congress (1815–1817)2 | February 12, 1817 | Washington, DC |
| 16th Congress (1819–1821)3 | February 14, 1821 | Washington, DC |
| 18th Congress (1823–1825)4 | February 9, 1825 | Washington, DC |
| 20th Congress (1827–1829) | February 11, 1829 | Washington, DC |
| 22nd Congress (1831–1833) | February 13, 1833 | Washington, DC |
| 24th Congress (1835–1837) | February 8, 1837 ; | Washington, DC |
| 26th Congress (1839–1841) | February 10, 1841 | Washington, DC |
| 28th Congress (1843–1845) | February 12, 1845 | Washington, DC |
| 30th Congress (1847–1849) | February 14, 1849 | Washington, DC |
| 32nd Congress (1851–1853) | February 9, 1853 | Washington, DC |
| 34th Congress (1855–1857) | February 11, 1857 | Washington, DC |
| 36th Congress (1859–1861) | February 13, 1861 | Washington, DC |
| 38th Congress (1863–1865) | February 8, 1865 | Washington, DC |
| 40th Congress (1867–1869) | February 10, 1869 | Washington, DC |
| 42nd Congress (1871–1873) | February 12, 1873 | Washington, DC |
| 44th Congress (1875–1877)5 | February 1, 1877 February 10, 1877 February 12, 1877 February 19, 1877 February 20, 1877 February 21, 1877 February 24, 1877 February 16, 1877 February 28, 1877 March 1, 1877 March 2, 1877 | Washington, DC |
| 46th Congress (1879–1881) | February 9, 1881 | Washington, DC |
| 48th Congress (1883–1885) | February 11, 1885 | Washington, DC |
| 50th Congress (1887–1889) | February 13, 1889 | Washington, DC |
| 52nd Congress (1891–1893) | February 8, 1893 | Washington, DC |
| 54th Congress (1895–1897) | February 10, 1897 | Washington, DC |
| 56th Congress (1899–1901) | February 13, 1901 | Washington, DC |
| 58th Congress (1903–1905) | February 8, 1905 | Washington, DC |
| 60th Congress (1907–1909) | February 10, 1909 | Washington, DC |
| 62nd Congress (1911–1913) | February 12, 1913 | Washington, DC |
| 64th Congress (1915–1917) | February 14, 1917 | Washington, DC |
| 66th Congress (1919–1921) | February 9, 1921 | Washington, DC |
| 68th Congress (1923–1925) | February 11, 1925 | Washington, DC |
| 70th Congress (1927–1929) | February 13, 1929 | Washington, DC |
| 72nd Congress (1931–1933) | February 8, 1933 | Washington, DC |
| 75th Congress (1937–1939)6 | January 6, 1937 | Washington, DC |
| 77th Congress (1941–1943) | January 6, 1941 | Washington, DC |
| 79th Congress (1945–1947) | January 6, 1945 | Washington, DC |
| 81st Congress (1949–1951) | January 6, 1949 | Washington, DC |
| 83rd Congress (1953–1955) | January 6, 1953 | Washington, DC |
| 85th Congress (1957–1959) | January 7, 1957 | Washington, DC |
| 87th Congress (1961–1963) | January 6, 1961 | Washington, DC |
| 89th Congress (1965–1967) | January 6, 1965 | Washington, DC |
| 91st Congress (1969–1971)7 | January 6, 1969 | Washington, DC |
| 93rd Congress (1973–1975) | January 6, 1973 | Washington, DC |
| 95th Congress (1977–1979) | January 6, 1977 | Washington, DC |
| 97th Congress (1981–1983) | January 6, 1981 | Washington, DC |
| Washington, DC | ||
| 99th Congress (1985–1987) | January 7, 1985 | Washington, DC |
| 101st Congress (1989–1991) | January 4, 1989 | Washington, DC |
| 103rd Congress (1993–1995) | January 6, 1993 | Washington, DC |
| 105th Congress (1997–1999) | January 9, 1997 | Washington, DC |
| 107th Congress (2001–2003) | January 6, 2001 | Washington, DC |
| 109th Congress (2005–2007) | January 6, 2005 | Washington, DC |
| 111th Congress (2009–2011) | January 8, 2009 | Washington, DC |
| 113th Congress (2013–2015) | January 4, 2013 | Washington, DC |
| 115th Congress (2017–2019) | January 6, 2017 | Washington, DC |
| 117th Congress (2021–2023)8 | January 6, 2021 | Washington, DC |
| 119th Congress (2025–2027) | January 6, 2025 | Washington, DC |
Footnotes
1Because of a tie in the electoral vote between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, the House of Representatives had to decide the election. Thirty-six ballots were required to break the deadlock, with Jefferson's election as President and Burr's as Vice President on February 17. The Twelfth Amendment was added to the Constitution to prevent the 1800 problem from recurring.
2During most of the period while the Capitol was being reconstructed following the fire of 1814, the Congress met in the "Brick Capitol," constructed on the site of the present Supreme Court building. This Joint Session took place in the Representatives' chamber on the 2d floor of the building.
3The Joint Session to count electoral votes was dissolved because the House and Senate disagreed on Missouri's status regarding statehood. The Joint Session was reconvened the same day and Missouri's votes were counted.
4Although Andrew Jackson won the popular vote by a substantial amount and had the highest number of electoral votes from among the several candidates, he did not receive the required majority of the electoral votes. The responsibility for choosing the new President therefore devolved upon the House of Representatives. As soon as the Senators left the chamber, the balloting proceeded, and John Quincy Adams was elected on the first ballot.
5The contested election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden created a constitutional crisis. Tilden won the popular vote by a close margin, but disputes concerning the electoral vote returns from four states deadlocked the proceedings of the Joint Session. Anticipating this development, the Congress had created a special commission of five Senators, five Representatives, and five Supreme Court Justices to resolve such disputes. The Commission met in the Supreme Court Chamber (the present Old Senate Chamber) as each problem arose. In each case, the Commission accepted the Hayes' electors, securing his election by one electoral vote. The Joint Session was convened on 15 occasions, with the last on March 2, just three days before the inauguration. The legislative day of February 1, 1877 lasted until formal adjournment at 4:12 AM on March 2, 1877.
6With the ratification of the 20th Amendment, the electoral votes were counted in January by the newly sworn-in Congress, elected the previous November.
7Vice President Humphrey was overseas attending the funeral of Trygve Lie, the United Nation’s first secretary general and did not preside over the Joint Session. The Joint Session to count electoral votes was dissolved so that the House and Senate could resolve the dispute regarding a ballot from North Carolina. The Joint Session was reconvened the same day and the North Carolina vote was counted.
8Due to a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, the counting of the Electoral College votes was interrupted at 2:19 PM and resumed at 9:02 PM. As a result, the legislative day of January 6, 2021, lasted until a formal adjournment at 3:48 AM on January 7, 2021.