50 Fun Facts About The Electoral College

How many electors make up the Electoral College, a total that has stayed the same since the 1964 election?

538 mirrors the size of Congress: 100 senators and 435 congressional districts, plus three electors for the District of Columbia.

Which president is the only one elected unanimously by the Electoral College, winning every elector in 1789 and 1792?

George Washington won a vote from all 69 electors in 1789 and all 132 in 1792. No later candidate has managed even one clean sweep.

Which state lost an electoral vote after the 2020 census, the first time its total has shrunk since statehood in 1850?

California still has 54 electoral votes, the most of any state, but slower growth cost it one of its 53 congressional districts.

Which body picks the president when nobody wins an Electoral College majority, as happened after the 1824 election?

The House of Representatives decides, with each state's delegation casting a single vote, so the smallest state counts exactly as much as the largest.

Which federal agency, keeper of the Declaration of Independence, coordinates the Electoral College process?

The National Archives runs the process through its Office of the Federal Register, which handles the paperwork between the states and Congress but never contacts the electors.

Which candidate won the nationwide popular vote in 2000 but lost the Electoral College by just five votes?

Al Gore led by about 544,000 votes nationwide, making him the first candidate since 1888 to win the popular vote yet lose the presidency.

On which day of the week do Americans choose their presidential electors, under a uniform date Congress set in 1845?

Tuesday let farmers attend church on Sunday, travel to the county seat on Monday and still vote before Wednesday's market day.

Which color have electoral maps used for Republican-won states since 2000, giving those states their nickname?

Red was not settled until 2000: as late as 1996, Time magazine still showed Republican states in blue.

Which state switched in 1972 to giving its statewide winner two electoral votes and each congressional district one?

Maine went 44 years before its districts actually disagreed: the first split came in 2016, when one of its four votes went to the statewide loser.

Which independent candidate won about 19 percent of the 1992 popular vote yet received no electoral votes at all?

Ross Perot drew nearly 20 million votes but finished first in no state, and winner-take-all rules give nothing for coming second.

How many electoral votes does a candidate need to win the presidency outright, a bare majority of the total?

270 has been the winning line since 1964. Fall short in a three-way race or a dead heat, and the electors no longer decide the outcome.

In which month do the Electoral College's members formally cast their ballots, weeks after the public has voted?

December is when the president is legally elected: on Election Day, voters are technically choosing between rival slates of electors.

On which date does Congress meet in joint session to count the electoral votes, with the vice president presiding?

January 6 sees each state's votes opened in alphabetical order, starting with Alabama, and read aloud by tellers from both chambers.

Which state's 2000 presidential recount, with a final margin of 537 votes, decided the Electoral College winner?

Florida's 25 electoral votes were more than the gap between the two candidates, so 537 ballots out of nearly six million settled the presidency.

Which state was the only one to gain two electoral votes after the 2020 census, lifting its total to 40?

Texas now ranks second on the electoral map. The five other states that grew fast enough to gain picked up a single vote each.

Which state, the least populous in the United States, holds the minimum of three electoral votes?

Wyoming also sets a ceiling: the District of Columbia may never have more electors than the least populous state.

Which Great Plains state began awarding its electoral votes by congressional district at the 1992 election?

Nebraska first divided its votes in 2008, when the district around Omaha backed the candidate who lost the state as a whole.

Which amendment, passed after the tied 1800 election, gave electors separate ballots for president and vice president?

The 12th Amendment replaced a system in which each elector cast two votes for president and the runner-up became vice president.

What name is given to an Electoral College member who breaks a pledge, as seven did in the 2016 election?

Faithless elector votes have never decided a presidential election, and nearly all have gone to third parties or to people who were not even running.

Which president holds the record of 525 electoral votes, set in a re-election landslide that carried 49 states?

Ronald Reagan lost only his opponent's home state and the District of Columbia in 1984, a combined 13 electoral votes.

Who does the Constitution let decide how electors are chosen, a power once used to skip public votes entirely?

State legislatures named the electors themselves in many early contests, and nothing in the Constitution requires a popular vote for president even now.

Where do members of the Electoral College cast their votes for president, all on one day set by federal law?

In their home states, usually at the state capitol, which is why the Electoral College never actually assembles in one place.

US presidential candidates spend most of their campaign time and money in a few closely divided places known as what?

Swing states matter because a narrow win there takes every elector on offer, so campaigns ignore places they are sure to win or lose.

What would be needed to abolish the Electoral College, the target of more than 700 reform proposals in Congress?

A constitutional amendment came closest in 1969, when a direct popular vote passed one chamber of Congress 339 to 70, only to stall in the other.

Which part of the US Constitution, the one that creates the presidency, sets out how electors are appointed?

Article II speaks only of electors: the name Electoral College appears nowhere in the Constitution and caught on in the early 19th century.

Which amendment, ratified in 1961, gave the District of Columbia a say in the Electoral College?

The 23rd Amendment let the capital's residents vote for president for the first time in 1964, with as many electors as the smallest state.

In which city did the convention that created the Electoral College meet through the summer of 1787?

Philadelphia's delegates settled on the plan only in the convention's final two weeks, after months of arguing over how to choose a president.

Which Founding Father, author of most of the Federalist Papers, defended the Electoral College in essay No. 68?

Hamilton argued that electors gathered for one brief task would be harder for foreign powers to corrupt than a standing body of officials.

Who usually picks each presidential candidate's slate of would-be electors in the months before Election Day?

State political parties often hand the role to loyal activists and officials as a reward for years of service.

Under a 1787 compromise, what share of enslaved people counted toward a state's seats in Congress and electoral votes?

Three-fifths gave Southern states extra congressmen and electors without giving a single vote to the people being counted.

Which running mate tied Thomas Jefferson at 73 electoral votes each in 1800, forcing 36 ballots to break the deadlock?

Aaron Burr was the party's intended vice president, but no elector held back a vote from him as planned, leaving the two men level.

Which candidate won the most popular and electoral votes in 1824 but still lost the presidency to John Quincy Adams?

Andrew Jackson's followers spent the next four years denouncing the result, and he defeated Adams in their 1828 rematch.

Which Kentucky statesman's backing of John Quincy Adams in 1825 was branded a corrupt bargain by his opponents?

Henry Clay had finished fourth in the race himself, and Adams then named him Secretary of State.

Which Republican won the presidency 185 to 184 after a special commission awarded him every disputed vote of 1876?

Rutherford B. Hayes won even though his opponent took an outright majority of the popular vote, 50.9 percent, which no other losing candidate has done.

Which challenger unseated President Grover Cleveland in 1888 despite winning fewer popular votes nationwide?

Benjamin Harrison trailed by about 90,000 votes nationwide, but a win of barely one percent in his rival's own state was worth 36 electors.

Which former Secretary of State received three electoral votes for president in 2016 without being a candidate?

Colin Powell got them from three electors pledged to Hillary Clinton, part of a failed effort to rally the Electoral College behind an alternative Republican.

Which president won re-election in 1820 with every electoral vote but one, cast by a lone New Hampshire elector?

James Monroe faced no opposing candidate at the height of the Era of Good Feelings; the stray vote went to his own Secretary of State.

Which was the only state George McGovern carried in the 1972 landslide, leaving him with just 17 electoral votes?

Massachusetts stood alone with the District of Columbia; McGovern even lost South Dakota, where he was a sitting senator.

Which former president won 88 electoral votes as the Progressive nominee in 1912, the best third-party showing ever?

Theodore Roosevelt pushed the sitting Republican president into third place with only eight electoral votes.

Which former Alabama governor carried five Southern states and 46 electoral votes as a third-party candidate in 1968?

George Wallace aimed to deny both major parties an Electoral College majority; he fell short, but no third party carried a state in the half-century that followed.

Which state ties Illinois for the fifth-largest electoral total, 19 votes each, after the 2020 census?

Pennsylvania gave up one vote in that count and now sits level with Illinois, behind only four bigger states.

Which state came within 89 residents of keeping its 29th electoral vote when the 2020 census was counted?

New York now ranks fourth with 28 electoral votes; 89 more people on the count would have kept the last of the 435 districts there.

Which state became the first to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, signing on in 2007?

Maryland and later members pledge their electors to the national vote winner, but only once states holding a majority of the Electoral College have joined.

Which state held no popular vote for president in any election through 1860, decades after every other state had one?

South Carolina first let its voters choose electors in 1868, three years after the Civil War ended.

Which newspaper editor and 1872 nominee died before the Electoral College met, scattering his 66 pledged votes?

Horace Greeley died 24 days after the election, and Congress later rejected the three votes that were still cast for him.

Which document, signed by each state's governor after the election, officially names that state's appointed electors?

The Certificate of Ascertainment lists every would-be elector on every slate with the votes each received, and must carry the state seal.

What name is given to the backup way of choosing a president when the Electoral College yields no majority winner?

A contingent election has been needed only three times, in 1801, 1825 and 1837, the last of them to fill the vice presidency alone.

Which Scottish-born delegate first proposed picking the US president through electors at the 1787 convention?

James Wilson really wanted a direct popular vote; when that proved impossible, he offered districts of voters choosing electors instead.

Which Virginia senator received 15 electoral votes in 1960 without ever running for president?

Harry F. Byrd drew his support from Mississippi and Alabama electors who refused to back John F. Kennedy, plus one Oklahoma Republican.

Which running mate of Martin Van Buren is the only vice president ever elected by the Senate, in 1837?

Richard M. Johnson fell one electoral vote short after Virginia's 23 electors refused to back him, so senators chose him 33 to 16.