Election Yard is explaining the Electoral College in the United States presidential election, if you have thirteen minutes to learn.
Every four years, a legal and constitutional construct of 538 people gathers across America and elects the President of the United States. Oh, you thought that you the voters did that in November? Not quite.
Every American presidential election has utilized the “Electoral College” as the direct means of choosing the president. Since it was updated via the 12th Amendment, in every election since 1804, you choose the electors, and then they choose the president and vice president separately on a ticket. Before that, it was theoretically possible, if not likely, for the election’s runner-up to be elected vice president.
This is an old system which still has very real impacts today. We go into various issues in terms of why there is an Electoral College, how it works, how it is chosen, and various controversies which have engulfed it. We do not promise detail on every single point or election law pertaining to the Electoral College, but with any luck, our explaining the Electoral College is sufficient enough to give readers and viewers a better understanding of how America chooses a president.
Explaining the Electoral College
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Chapters and segments in our video include:
- The Basics of the Electoral College
- Historical Establishment of the EC
- Counting to 538
- What Happens on Election Day
- Picking the Electoral College feat. Maine and Nebraska
- Criticisms of the Electoral College
- The Electoral College Meets
- “Faithless Electors”
- “Fake Electors”
- Counting the Electoral Votes (January 6)
- The Role of the Vice President and Other Recent Changes
- Contingent Elections
Electoral College: Long Story Short
There are 538 members of the Electoral College from 51 different jurisdictions across the United States. In case you were wondering, that’s 50 states and Washington, DC, the latter of which can only vote in a presidential election. Their representation in Congress is ceremonial.
Speaking of ceremonial, a great deal of heavy lifting is done by the voters in November, but there are many procedural hurdles which must be cleared in order for a president and vice president to take the oath on January 20. One of those is on January 6, a date many Americans now know all too well, with the reading of the electoral votes. This day too is mostly ceremonial, but it is also a forum for objections to be raised. As we know, this has happened in the past. However, it is an extreme rarity for any electoral vote objections to be raised, let alone upheld.
A recent law, The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022, further codified the vice president’s official role in the proceedings and made such objections more difficult.
Explaining the Electoral College: Key References
A full list of references cited in our research is available in our YouTube video on this subject. The screen cap is also shown below. Some references are directly linked throughout this article.
We noted that the National Archives made available the “fake” and/or “unofficial” electoral vote certificates received by seven states in 2020. The link is here for those who wish to view those certificates.
A link to the Constitution of the United States can be found here.
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