Choosing a president Why is there an electoral college?

US citizens do not directly choose the president. Instead, the task is reserved for the electoral college.

- Sam Levine Ana Lucía González Paz

Every four years, in the December following an election, its members – politicians and largely unknown party loyalists – meet in all 50 states on the same day and cast their votes for president. Then they essentially disappear.

In recent years there has been growing criticism of the electoral college, accelerated by the fact that two Republican presidents – George W Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016 – have been elected while losing the popular vote. But there's no sign that US elections will change any time soon.

What is the electoral college?

Article II of the US constitution lays out the process by which a president is elected.

Each state has a number of electors equal to the total number of representatives and senators it has in Congress. Washington DC gets three electoral votes. There are 538 electors. A candidate needs the votes of 270 of them to win.

The constitution says that state legislatures can choose how they award their electors. All but two have long chosen a winner-takes-all system – the winner of the popular vote in their state gets all of the electoral votes. Maine and Nebraska award theirs differently.

In both states, two electoral college votes are allocated to the statewide winner. Each state then awards its remaining electors to the winner in each congressional district.

Why does the US have an electoral college?