In order to appreciate the reasons for the Electoral College, it is essential to understand its historical context and the problem that the Founding Fathers were trying to solve. They faced the difficult question of how to elect a president in a nation that:

 

The US was composed of thirteen large and small States jealous of their own rights and powers and suspicious of any central national government

 

It contained only 4,000,000 people spread up and down a thousand miles of

Atlantic seaboard barely connected by transportation or communication (so that national campaigns were impractical even if they had been thought desirable)

 

The Founders believed, under the influence of such British political thinkers as Henry

St John Bolingbroke, that political parties were mischievous if not downright evil



The President of the United States is elected by the Electoral College and not directly by the population. Each state is assigned electoral votes based on the number of senators and representatives that state has in Congress. Each state has two Senators. The number of representatives is determined by the states population but is never less then

 

Thus small states with a small population are overly represented in the Electoral College. One candidate wins all of the electoral votes in all states except Maine and Nebreska. Their two electors are chosen by statewide popular vote and a single elector is chosen in each Congressional district.



When does the Electoral College meet?



The Electoral College meets on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. Their votes are then counted again in the presence of a Joint Meeting of Congress sixth day of January to certify the returns. The candidate that wins over 50% of the electoral votes becomes President of the United States.