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After the conclusion of the party
conventions in August,
the fall campaign begins in earnest,
and the ultimate goal
is to get a majority of votes
in the electoral college.
In the electoral college, each state
is assigned a number of electors,
which is equal to the number of members that
state has in the House of Representatives,
plus the number of senators that it has,
which is always two.
As a result the minimum number of
electoral votes a state can have is three,
and California has the most
with 55 electoral votes.
In total there are 435 electoral votes for
the House of Representatives,
plus 100 electoral votes for the Senate,
plus three additional electoral votes for
the District of Columbia,
which isn't a part of any state.
It all adds up to 538 electoral votes,
and in order to become president a candidate
needs to get a majority of 270 electoral votes
to win.
So how are these electors chosen?
According to the Constitution, the
legislature of each state has the power
to determine how that state will choose its electors,
but all 50 states have chosen the same method:
electors are chosen by popular vote.
By federal law, the presidential election is held
on the first Tuesday after the first Monday
in November,
and in 48 of the 50 states,
whichever candidate wins the popular vote
also wins all of that state's
electoral votes.
In the other two states,
the electoral votes are awarded
proportionately.
Then in December, electors in all 50 states
travel to their state capitals and cast their votes.
Then the ballots are sent to
Washington, D.C. where they're opened and
counted in front of the United States
Senate the following January.
Only then is a winner officially declared.
But who are these electors?
Electors are party loyalists, individuals who've
worked on behalf of the political party and
donated money for their entire lives.
These are individuals who can be counted
upon to vote for their party's candidate.
Occasionally electors will refuse to vote
for the candidate that won the popular vote
in their state.
These are known as faithless electors,
but they've never had an influence on
the outcome of an election.
The Electoral College certainly is an unusual
system, and it's open to many criticisms.
The most significant of these is the fact
that sometimes the person that wins the popular vote
loses the electoral vote.
This has happened four times in American history,
including the election of our two most recent
Republican presidents,
George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
Another criticism of the Electoral College
is that some states are far
more important than others.
We call them swing states.
Many of our largest states are either
very, very, democratic, such as California,
or very Republican, like the state of Texas.
Since the outcome of these kinds of states
is known well in advance,
candidates spend almost no time or 
money campaigning in them.
Instead, candidates spend almost
all of their time and money
in the handful of states that are
actually competitive.
These states are known as swing states.
As a result of these issues and others,
many proposals to reform the
Electoral College have been made.
The most popular of these proposals
would be to simply abolish the Electoral College
and replace it with a direct vote.
However, this reform and most other proposals
to reform the Electoral College
would require a constitutional amendment,
and therefore almost certainly will never pass.
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