Question: If the state's winner chooses electors, won't the person with the most votes?
Answer: While the person who wins a state gets to choose that state's electors, they will most probably win that state. However, because it only requires 270 electoral votes to win, it is feasible to have more of the popular vote and still lose in the electoral college. In fact, to reach 270 a candidate would only need to carry eleven states: California, New York, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina and Virginia.
Learn more about the electoral college:
- What is the electoral college?
- Why did the Founding Fathers create electors?
- How many total electoral votes are there?
- How many electoral votes does a candidate need to win?
- Which states have the most electoral votes?
- How many electors does each state have?
- What about Washington, D.C. and the electoral vote?
- What happens if there is a tie in the electoral college?
- Who are the electors?
- What procedure is followed for the electors to vote?
- Has someone received a plurality of the vote yet lost in the electoral college?
- Has a tie ever occurred in the electoral college? When?
- Why don't the candidates get a proportion of the electoral vote?
- Why have elections when the state's winner will receive all the electoral votes?
- When do we finally have an official winner?
