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Representation in the Electoral College: How do states compare?

The 2020 election will be the last of the decade before electoral votes are reallocated based on Census results. See how the current distribution of the nation’s 538 electoral votes compares to the number of people living in all 50 states and Washington, DC.

Published on Thu, August 13, 2020 2:49PM PDT | Updated Tue, February 6, 2024 12:54PM PST

How does the Electoral College work?

Every four years, 538 electors hailing from all 50 states plus Washington, DC cast their votes for president and vice president of the United States. A candidate needs a majority of 270 electoral votes to win each race. In this system, known as the Electoral College , each state gets the same number of electors as it has members of Congress — one for each member in the House of Representatives and one for each of the state’s two senators. This means that each state is guaranteed a minimum of three electors, regardless of population size. It also means that there is always a total of 538 electors, or equivalently, 538 electoral votes — that’s the sum of 435 voting members of the House, 100 senators, and three electors assigned to Washington, DC.

So, when voters cast ballots for president and vice president on Election Day, they’re actually voting for a slate of electors who have pledged to vote for their favored candidates. Most states (with the exceptions of Maine and Nebraska) use a “winner-take-all” system of choosing electors, meaning that — assuming electors vote according to their pledges — all of the state’s electoral votes are cast for the candidate that wins the majority of the state’s popular vote.

Electoral votes and population: Why one electoral vote accounts for 193,000 people in Wyoming and over 700,000 people in Texas or California.

Generally, states that are home to more people control more electoral votes. California — the largest state by population — has 55 electoral votes, while Wyoming — the smallest — has the minimum allocation of three. But because electoral votes are allocated according to seats in Congress, where each state holds two Senate seats regardless of population size, electoral representation varies quite a bit across states.

One way to think about electoral representation is to consider how many people each electoral vote represents, based on a state’s population. According to 2018 population estimates, one electoral vote in Wyoming accounts for around 193,000 people, while a vote in Texas or California accounts for over 700,000. For context, if all 538 electoral votes were distributed evenly among the US population, each vote would represent about 607,000 people.

Another way of thinking about electoral representation is to consider the difference between a state’s share of the nation’s total population and its share of all electoral votes. For example, Wyoming makes up about 0.18% of the US population but controls 0.56% of all electoral votes. This difference may seem minuscule, but it translates to approximately two additional electoral votes for Wyoming, relative to its population share. If Wyoming’s electoral share aligned with its share of the US population, it would have 0.18% of all 538 votes, which is about one electoral vote — but because votes are allocated based on seats in Congress, the state has the minimum of three votes in the Electoral College.

On the other end of the spectrum, California represents 12.1% of the US population and has 10.2% of all electoral votes. This means California controls roughly 10 fewer votes in the Electoral College than it would if votes were allocated based on population alone (because 12.1% of the total 538 votes is about 65 electoral votes, but California currently controls 55). For context, 10 votes is equivalent to the entire electoral share assigned to states like Maryland, Minnesota, and Missouri. It’s also the same as the combined vote shares of Iowa and Maine, or of all three states of Montana, Delaware, and Idaho.

Total population helps determine how electoral votes are allocated, but eligible voters determine how the votes are cast.

These examples demonstrate electoral representation based on each state’s share of the national population, and that’s because states receive representation in both the House of Representatives and the Electoral College according to the total resident population , not just according to how many voters live in the state. The resident population is all who live in the state at the time of the Census count, including both citizen and noncitizen residents, and both adults and children. Still, another way to view electoral representation is to see how the distribution of electoral votes compares to the distribution of eligible voters among states.

When determined according to the voting-eligible population nationwide, electoral representation looks a bit more equal across states. In particular, the two most populous states — California and Texas — are underrepresented by fewer votes when looking at representation among the voting-eligible population instead of the total resident population. These large states have higher proportions of non-citizen adults and a lower median age than many other states, so their shares of the voting-eligible population are smaller than their shares of the total US population. For example, California makes up 12.1% of the total US population but 11% of the citizen voting-age population; so by total population share, the state is about 10 votes underrepresented in the Electoral College, but by its share of eligible voters, the difference is closer to four votes.

What if electoral vote shares were equal to population shares in every state?

It’s important to note that even if electoral votes were allocated exactly according to each state’s share of the US population or share of eligible voters, the electoral process would not resemble a national popular vote . This is because of the winner-take-all rule for choosing state electors, currently used by 48 states and Washington, DC. According to this rule, all electoral votes go toward the candidate that earns the most votes in the state’s general election; therefore, votes cast for any other candidate do not earn any of the state’s electoral votes.

In other words, according to the winner-take-all policy, a candidate may earn 49.9% of a state’s popular vote and earn 0% of the state’s electoral votes. This explains how a candidate may win the national popular vote but, by failing to earn 270 electoral votes, may still lose the presidential election in the Electoral College — a scenario which has occurred in five US presidential elections, including the most recent election in 2016.

After this November's election, electoral votes will be reallocated based on Census results.

The total of 538 electoral votes is fixed, but how these votes are distributed between states can change as a result of the decennial Census . Every 10 years, the results of the Census determine how seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned, and states may gain or lose electoral votes accordingly. This November’s election will be the last of the decade before the reallocation of electoral votes.

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U.S. Constitution.net

Electoral College Explained

Historical development.

The Electoral College, as outlined in Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution , was established as a compromise between election of the President by Congress and election by popular vote. The founders aimed to form a buffer between population and the selection of a President, which originally involved electors chosen by the state legislatures.

The system underwent significant changes with the 12th Amendment , ratified in 1804, following a highly problematic election in 1800 where Thomas Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr, tied in electoral votes, throwing the election to the House of Representatives. This amendment mandated separate Electoral College votes for President and Vice President to avoid similar confusion in the future.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, tweaks to the Electoral College arose predominantly through changes in how states chose their electors. Initially, state legislatures selected electors, but by the mid-19th century, all states had shifted to popular elections. Some states originally allowed their legislatures to represent the voter's intent, but this has largely fallen out of practice except in rare instances of legislative interposition.

By the time of the contentious 1876 election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden, wherein neither candidate secured a majority of electoral votes, a special Electoral Commission was established. This incident illustrated profound flaws in the Electoral College system and led to calls for reform, seen later during pivotal elections.

The 1960s introduced the rise of calls for a direct popular vote after multiple attempts for change emerged throughout the 20th century. The most significant might be during the 1968 presidential election, catalyzed by shifts in public opinion that leaned heavily towards abolishment of the Electoral College in favor of a direct popular vote. However, the legislative fruition of these calls remained stagnant, mainly due to political and regional partisanship.

The skewed weight per vote due to demographic distribution across states has remained a pivotal issue. States like Wyoming having more electoral influence per capita compared to densely populated California reiterates disparities that frequently ignite discussions on the relevance and fairness of this system in modern elections.

Faithless electors have also occasionally influenced debates around the Electoral College's efficacy. In principle, electors are expected to vote for the candidate who received the most votes in their respective states, but instances of electors casting votes by either personal discretion or party influence have surfaced sporadically, leading to calls for tighter laws on elector commitments.

Current discussions also pivot on the effects of the Winner-Take-All method employed by most states, influencing strategic campaign placements, where candidates focus primarily on battleground states while often overlooking ones perceived as staunchly loyal to a particular party. This tactical disregard potentially undermines political engagement in "secure" states.

Alternative proposals to the existing format include the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, advanced as a way to ensure the Popular Vote winner becomes the President without amending the Constitution. Participating states agree to cast their electoral votes for the National Popular Vote winner as soon as enough states join to reach a 270-electoral vote majority.

The historical evolution and contemporary criticism of the Electoral College highlight fundamental concerns on its alignment with democratic principles, feeding an ongoing debate on whether it continues to serve its founding functions or whether a new method of presidential election is overdue for a contemporary America.

Mechanics of the Electoral College

On Election Day, voters across the United States cast their ballots not directly for presidential candidates but for electors who pledge to vote on their behalf in the Electoral College. These electors, whose numbers are tied to the sum of each state's Senators and Representatives in Congress, ultimately select the President and Vice President.

Following the state elections, chosen electors convene in their respective state capitals in December to officially cast their electoral votes. This process is a formality, as electors usually pledge to support their party's candidate if that candidate won the state's popular vote. Interestingly, while the U.S. Constitution dictates the existence of electors, it does not specify the exact proceedings for this voting, which has resulted in varied practices.

Each elector casts one vote for President and one for Vice President, which are recorded on separate ballots. This method of secret balloting aims to maintain elector discretion although 'faithless elector' occurrences are rare and have never impacted the end result of a presidential race.

After the voting by electors, the next crucial step is the counting and certification of electoral votes by Congress. This happens on January 6, following the election year, during a joint session of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Vice President, serving as the President of the Senate, oversees this significant event.

During this session, the certificates of electoral votes from each state are opened and presented in alphabetical order. Members of both chambers of Congress have the opportunity to object to the electoral votes. If both a Senator and a Representative challenge a state's results, the two chambers separately debate this issue. However, both houses of Congress must unanimously agree to reject an electoral vote—something that is highly rare.

Assuming no controversies demanding resolutions arise—or once resolved—the candidate who accumulates at least 270 electoral votes is officially declared the winner by the Vice President. This formal announcement ratifies the selection of the President-elect and Vice President-elect, with Inauguration Day set for January 20.

Controversies and Criticisms

The core controversies of the Electoral College often spark heated debate among scholars, policymakers, and the public alike. Central to these disagreements is the winner-takes-all allocation used by almost all states. Critics argue that this method often leaves the 'losing' voters in a state effectively unrepresented in the Electoral College. For example, a candidate can win a state by a small margin in the popular vote but garner all the state's electoral votes, potentially sidelining half the voting population. This can lead to a significant disparity between the national popular vote and the Electoral College results, raising questions about the democratic integrity of the election process.

Indeed, the divergence between the Electoral College and the popular vote has led to instances where the presidential candidate who lost the popular vote still claimed victory through the Electoral College. Examples in modern history include the 2000 and 2016 elections, in which George W. Bush and Donald Trump, respectively, lost the popular vote but won the presidency due to Electoral College mathematics. 1,2 Such situations have fueled arguments that the Electoral College may thwart the will of the majority of voters, leading to a government that lacks full democratic legitimacy by modern standards.

Adding another layer to these concerns are 'faithless electors.' These are electors who, contrary to expectations, do not vote for the candidate who won their state's popular vote. Although rare and yet to decisively impact the outcome of a presidential election, the very existence of faithless electors adds unpredictability to an already contentious system. It poses pivotal questions about electoral autonomy versus elector obligations, further complicating the debates around the Electoral College's role in democratic governance.

Additionally, concerns exist about the equal value of votes across different states. Because electoral votes are not strictly proportional to population, voters in less populated states wield comparatively more influence than those in densely populated states. This discrepancy can feel antithetical to principles of equal representation prevalent in democratic ideologies, where ideally each vote carries equal weight in influencing an election's outcome.

Therefore, despite the ingenious design and historical roots of the Electoral College within the U.S. Constitution, it raises significant concerns that threaten its current suitability. As such, calls for reform or replacement simmer within political discourse, propelled by these intricacies and contradictions that challenge its utility in ensuring a president who truly represents the majority's preference.

Proposed Reforms

One prominent reform initiative is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) , which posits a significant transformation in how electoral votes are allocated without necessitating a Constitutional amendment. Rather than abolishing the Electoral College, the NPVIC allows it to remain but works within its framework. States participating in the compact agree to award all their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the nationwide popular vote, regardless of the state-specific results. This Compact will take effect only when the total electoral votes of the member states exceed the crucial figure of 270—enough to secure the election of the president. As of now, states representing 196 electoral votes have joined the compact, indicating movement toward but not yet reaching this critical threshold. 3

Another approach widely discussed involves amending the U.S. Constitution to abolish the Electoral College entirely, replacing it with a direct national popular vote. This method requires both a two-thirds majority vote in each house of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures—which demonstrates a formidable challenge, given the political diversity and varying interests across states. This level of consensus is complex to achieve as demonstrated by history and reflects the very brand of federalist balance the founding fathers aimed to secure.

Both ideas, while robust in advocating for enhanced democracy, must confront enduring queries related to campaign dynamics, minority interests, and regional diversity. Critics of shifting to a straightforward national popular vote argue that such a shift may direct candidates to focus primarily on large urban centers where the densest populations reside, potentially neglecting rural or less densely-populated areas. Proponents reply that a national campaign strategy under the popular vote would compel presidential contenders to appeal to a broader cross-section of Americans, thereby promoting more inclusivity in policy discourse and campaigning.

As these proposals make clear, debate around the Electoral College's reform or abolition inherently addresses broader questions about the nature of American democracy and the fundamental principles governing it. The contemplation of these reforms—be it through constitutional amendments or innovative compacts—reveals an ongoing commitment to perfecting a union that remains true to both its historical roots and its evolving democratic ideals. This ongoing dialectic underscores that while the Founding Fathers laid forth a visionary template, it is incumbent upon subsequent generations to recalibrate its mechanisms to better reflect the values and demographics of a modern nation.

Impact on Political Campaigns

Political campaigns in the United States are fundamentally shaped by the Electoral College, explaining why presidential candidates concentrate their efforts on a select group of battleground or swing states rather than engaging equally across all states. This focus primarily results from the winner-takes-all method of allocating electoral votes, which is used by all but two states, Maine and Nebraska. Here, the candidate receiving the majority of the popular vote in a state typically secures all of that state's electoral votes.

This system compels strategists to invest a disproportionate amount of time, money, and resources into states that could go either way—Democratic or Republican. States like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan often see a surge of campaign activity, including advertising spend, rallies, and targeted policies aimed at swaying an undecided electorate. Conversely, "safe" states with a history of swinging strongly Republican or Democrat receive considerably less attention beyond fundraising activities.

This tactical distribution of campaign resources has wider implications for political engagement across the country. It can lead to voter apathy in states considered safe, where the electorate may feel their vote holds less sway in tipping the balance of national results. By the same token, it can escalate election fervor in swing states, potentially giving a small pocket of voters an oversized influence on the outcome of the election.

Moreover, this strategy has spurred discussions about equity and representation in the democratic process. Critics argue that focusing only on swing states might lead to policy promises that cater to interests represented within these areas at the expense of broader national interests. This not only skews the democratic process but also places immense power in the hands of a few, thus making the national outcome dependent on regional issues and sentiments that might not mirror the overall will of the American populace.

Additionally, the Electoral College shapes campaign narratives in ways that deepen regional divides rather than fostering a cohesive national identity. Candidates may embrace rhetoric or adopt stances that resonate with key demographics within pivotal swing states, potentially inflaming partisan divides or overlooking urgent national issues that do not play as effectively in those areas.

In light of these issues, some critics argue for reforms that would lead presidential candidates to campaign for votes nationwide, respecting each vote equally irrespective of state identity. Such changes promise a campaign landscape that encourages candidates to build more inclusive platforms that address the concerns of a broader electorate.

Thus, while the Founding Fathers envisioned the Electoral College as a check against the unwielded voting population and as a balance between big and small states, its current manifestation continues to stir significant debate over its influence on American political and electoral strategies. Reflecting on these complex dynamics underscores the ongoing need to examine and possibly recalibrate election systems to ensure they accord with democratic principles of equality, representation, and fairness. These principles remain pivotal in making each citizen feel that their vote is not only counted but truly counts in shaping the governance of their country.

• Neale TH. The Electoral College: How It Works in Contemporary Presidential Elections. Congressional Research Service; 2020.
• Edwards GC III. Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America. 3rd ed. Yale University Press; 2019.
• Koza J, Fadem B, Grueskin M, et al. Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote. National Popular Vote Press; 2013.

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Electoral College

The Electoral College decides who will be elected president and vice president of the U.S. Learn who is involved and how the process works.

What is the Electoral College?

The Electoral College is not a physical place. It is a process which includes the:

• Selection of electors
• Meeting of electors who cast votes for the president and vice president
• Counting of the electors’ votes by Congress

In other U.S. elections, candidates are elected directly by popular vote. But the president and vice president are not elected directly by citizens. Instead, they are chosen through the Electoral College process.

Who is in the Electoral College?

Each state gets as many electors as it has members of Congress (House and Senate). Including Washington, D.C.’s three electors, there are currently 538 electors in all. Find out how many electoral votes each state gets.

Each state’s political parties choose their own slate of potential electors. Who is chosen to be an elector, how, and when varies by state. Learn more about how electors are chosen.

How does the Electoral College process work?

After you cast your ballot for president, your vote goes to a statewide tally. In 48 states and Washington, D.C., the winner gets all the electoral votes for that state. Maine and Nebraska assign their electors using a proportional system.

A candidate needs the vote of at least 270 electors—more than half of all electors—to win the presidential election.

In most cases, a projected winner is announced on election night in November after you vote. But the actual Electoral College vote takes place in mid-December when the electors meet in their states. See the Electoral College timeline of events for the 2020 election.

While the Constitution does not require electors to vote for the candidate chosen by their state's popular vote, some states do. The rare elector who votes for someone else may be fined, disqualified and replaced by a substitute elector, or potentially even prosecuted by their state.

Learn more about how the Electoral College works.

Unusual Electoral College scenarios

Winning the popular vote but losing the election.

It is possible to win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote . This happened in 2016, 2000, and three times in the 1800s.

What happens if no candidate wins the majority of electoral votes?

If no candidate receives the majority of electoral votes,  the vote goes to the House of Representatives .

This has happened twice. The first time was following the 1800 presidential election, when the House chose Thomas Jefferson. And following the 1824 presidential election, the House selected John Quincy Adams as president.

How to change the Electoral College

The Electoral College process is in the U.S. Constitution. It would take a constitutional amendment to change the process. For more information, contact your U.S. senator or your U.S. representative .

LAST UPDATED: March 14, 2024

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How do electoral votes work? These pictures explain the Electoral College process.

What does it take to be president ? You’ve got to be at least 35 years old and a natural-born citizen, for starters. But after the campaigning is done and the ballots are filled out, how does a candidate become president?

The 2024 presidential election is quickly approaching and President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are taking the debate stage . Before we get to Election Day , here’s everything you need to know about how Americans' votes are tallied.

What is the Electoral College?

The Electoral College is a presidential voting process established in the Constitution. The founding fathers created this system as a compromise between the popular vote, directly among citizens, and a congressional vote.

How many votes did Biden get in 2020?: His record, explained

Unable to view our graphics? Click here to see them. 

How does the Electoral College work?

There are 538 total electoral votes given to each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. based on how many members of Congress it has in Washington. Candidates need 270 votes to win.

The popular vote refers to a statewide tally, and the electoral votes are a reallocation of that tally. When you cast your ballot, your vote is counted with the rest of the state. In most states, the winner gets all the electoral votes.

The only exceptions are Maine and Nebraska, which have electors based on both the statewide and Congressional district popular vote . These states may have a “split vote,” which means they can allocate some votes to one candidate and some to the other. This happened in Nebraska in 2008, in Maine in 2016, and in both states in 2020 .

States delegate electors, who represent their state to vote for president and vice president. The Constitution and federal laws provide general requirements for elector selection . State laws adhere to these requirements but vary on additional procedures . Electors cannot be members of Congress , hold high-level federal positions or have engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the U.S.

Electors pledge to vote according to the statewide or district popular vote. If they don’t, they’re called a “faithless elector.” Some states have laws that require their electors to vote as pledged .

After the electoral votes are counted, a projected winner is announced. If no candidate wins 270 votes, the House conducts a majority vote to elect the president. Here's when this process will happen in the 2024 presidential race:

What determines a state's electoral votes?

A state gets two votes per senator plus the number of congressional districts it has. These numbers are evaluated based on Census data. California, the most populous state in the U.S., has 54 votes while Wyoming, the least populous , has 3. For example –

When the Census shows state population change, electoral votes and congressional seats are shifted .

The current allocations are based on the 2020 Census, which will count for the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections. Here’s each state’s allotted votes, including Washington, D.C.: 

Breakdown of Electoral College

Who certifies the electoral college vote.

Congress counts and certifies the votes. They meet in a joint session on Jan. 6 with the vice president presiding over the count and announcing the results. 

Last year, Congress revised the Electoral Count Act in response to the Jan. 6 insurrection to clarify that a vice president does not have the power to overturn a presidential election. 

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Why Was the Electoral College Created?

By: Dave Roos

Updated: December 14, 2020 | Original: July 15, 2019

Five times in history, presidential candidates have won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College . This has led some to question why Americans use this system to elect their presidents in the first place.

Among the many thorny questions debated by the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention , one of the hardest to resolve was how to elect the president. The Founding Fathers debated for months, with some arguing that Congress should pick the president and others insistent on a democratic popular vote.

Their compromise is known as the Electoral College.

What Is the Electoral College?

The system calls for the creation, every four years, of a temporary group of electors equal to the total number of representatives in Congress. Technically, it is these electors, and not the American people, who vote for the president. In modern elections, the first candidate to get 270 of the 538 total electoral votes wins the White House.

The Electoral College was never intended to be the “perfect” system for picking the president, says George Edwards III , emeritus political science professor at Texas A&M University.

“It wasn’t like the Founders said, ‘Hey, what a great idea! This is the preferred way to select the chief executive, period,’” says Edwards. “They were tired, impatient, frustrated. They cobbled together this plan because they couldn’t agree on anything else.”

Electoral College: A System Born of Compromise

At the time of the Philadelphia convention, no other country in the world directly elected its chief executive, so the delegates were wading into uncharted territory. Further complicating the task was a deep-rooted distrust of executive power. After all, the fledgling nation had just fought its way out from under a tyrannical king and overreaching colonial governors. They didn’t want another despot on their hands.

One group of delegates felt strongly that Congress shouldn’t have anything to do with picking the president. Too much opportunity for chummy corruption between the executive and legislative branches.

Another camp was dead set against letting the people elect the president by a straight popular vote. First, they thought 18th-century voters lacked the resources to be fully informed about the candidates, especially in rural outposts. Second, they feared a headstrong “democratic mob” steering the country astray. And third, a populist president appealing directly to the people could command dangerous amounts of power.

Out of those drawn-out debates came a compromise based on the idea of electoral intermediaries. These intermediaries wouldn’t be picked by Congress or elected by the people. Instead, the states would each appoint independent “electors” who would cast the actual ballots for the presidency.

Slavery and the Three-Fifths Compromise

But determining exactly how many electors to assign to each state was another sticking point. Here the divide was between slave-owning and non-slave-owning states. It was the same issue that plagued the distribution of seats in the House of Representatives: should or shouldn’t the Founders include slaves in counting a state’s population?

In 1787, roughly 40 percent of people living in the Southern states were enslaved Black people, who couldn’t vote. James Madison from Virginia—where enslaved people accounted for 60 percent of the population—knew that either a direct presidential election, or one with electors divvied up according to free white residents only, wouldn’t fly in the South.

“The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States,” said Madison, “and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.”

The result was the controversial “three-fifths compromise,” in which three-fifths of the enslaved Black population would be counted toward allocating representatives and electors and calculating federal taxes. The compromise ensured that Southern states would ratify the Constitution and gave Virginia, home to more than 200,000 slaves, a quarter (12) of the total electoral votes required to win the presidency (46).

Did you know? For 32 of the United States’ first 36 years, a slave-holding Virginian occupied the White House (John Adams from Massachusetts was the exception).

Not only was the creation of the Electoral College in part a political workaround for the persistence of slavery in the United States, but almost none of the Founding Fathers’ assumptions about the electoral system proved true.

For starters, there were no political parties in 1787. The drafters of the Constitution assumed that electors would vote according to their individual discretion, not the dictates of a state or national party. Today, most electors are bound to vote for their party’s candidate.

And even more important, the Constitution says nothing about how the states should allot their electoral votes. The assumption was that each elector’s vote would be counted. But over time, all but two states (Maine and Nebraska) passed laws to give all of their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the state’s popular vote count. Any semblance of elector independence has been fully wiped out.

The Founders also assumed that most elections would ultimately be decided by neither the people nor the electors, but by the House of Representatives. According to the Constitution, if no single candidate wins a majority of the electoral votes, the decision goes to the House, where each state gets one vote.

After the unanimous election of George Washington as the nation’s first president, the Founders figured that consequent elections would feature tons of candidates who would divide up the electoral pie into tiny chunks, giving Congress a chance to pick the winner. But as soon as national political parties formed, the number of presidential candidates shrank. Only two U.S. elections have been decided by the House and the last one was in 1824.

Why We Still Use the Electoral College

So why does the Electoral College still exist, despite its contentious origins and awkward fit with modern politics? The party in power typically benefits from the existence of the Electoral College, says Edwards, and the minority party has little chance of changing the system because a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds supermajority in Congress plus ratification by three-fourths of the states. 

Columnist George Will shudders to think of what would have happened in the 1960 election if there had been no Electoral College.

“ John F. Kennedy ’s popular vote margin over Richard M. Nixon was just 118,574,” writes Will. “If all 68,838,219 popular votes had been poured into a single national bucket, there would have been powerful incentives to challenge the results in many of the nation’s 170,000 precincts.”

How the Great Compromise and the Electoral College Affect Politics Today

Larger states wanted congressional representation based on population, while smaller states wanted equal representation. They met in the middle.

5 Presidents Who Lost the Popular Vote But Won the Election

These presidential candidates didn't need to secure more popular votes to win election, due to the Electoral College.

How the Electoral College Was Nearly Abolished in 1970

The House approved a constitutional amendment to dismantle the indirect voting system, but it was killed in the Senate by a filibuster.

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Electoral College

Roles and Responsibilities in the Electoral College Process

The term “State” includes the District of Columbia, and the term “Executive” includes State Governors and the Mayor of the District of Columbia.

The electors

On the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December, the electors meet in their respective States to cast their votes for President and Vice President of the United States. Read more about the qualifications and selection of the electors and restrictions , if any, on how they may vote.

The U.S. Constitution and Federal law place certain Presidential election responsibilities on State executives and the electors for President and Vice President.

Appoint electors

The Constitution and Federal law generally do not prescribe the method of appointment, but there are some requirements. States are required to appoint electors in accordance with the laws of the State enacted prior to Election Day. Electors must be appointed on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November (Election Day*).

*States that appoint electors by popular vote (currently all) may include a modified voting period necessitated by force majeure events that are extraordinary and catastrophic as part of ‘election day’.

In most States, the political parties nominate slates of electors at State conventions or central committee meetings. Then the voters of each State choose the electors by voting for their preferred candidates in the state-wide general election. While State laws on the appointment of electors may vary, in general the slate of electors that wins the popular vote is appointed by the State's Executive.

Under the Constitution and Federal law, State legislatures have broad powers to direct the process for selecting electors, as long as that process is in place before Election Day, with one exception regarding the qualifications of electors. Article II, section 1, clause 2 of the Constitution provides that “no Senator, Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States” may be appointed as an elector.

Prepare the Certificate of Ascertainment

After the general election, the Executive of each State prepares seven (7) original Certificates of Ascertainment listing the persons appointed as electors. The Executive is required to issue a Certificate no later than 6 days before the electors meet. Federal law does not govern the general appearance of the Certificate of Ascertainment, so the format can vary from State to State. However, Federal law requires that each Certificate of Ascertainment must:

• list the names of the electors chosen by the voters and the number of votes received.
• list the names of all other candidates for elector and the number of votes received.
• be signed by the Executive and carry the seal of the State.
• contain at least one security feature, as determined by the State, for purposes of verifying the authenticity of the certificate.

Note : Federal law prescribes an expedited procedure for resolving disputes before this deadline (see 3 U.S.C. §5).

Distribute the Certificate of Ascertainment

Each State must send one Certificate of Ascertainment to the Archivist of the United States at OFR immediately after the general election results are finalized.

Each State must retain the other six originals and provide them to the electors for the State’s meeting of the electors.

Hold the Meeting of electors

On the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December, the electors meet in their respective States. The State legislature designates where in the State the meeting will take place, usually in the State capital. At this meeting, the electors cast their votes for President and Vice President.

If any electors are unable to carry out their duties on the day of the Electoral College meeting, each State appoints substitute electors following its own laws and procedures.

The meeting location and all procedures (including for appointing substitute electors) must be in place before election day.

There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law requiring electors to vote in accordance with the popular vote in their States. But some States do have specific voting requirements.

Prepare the Certificate of Vote

Federal law does not govern the general appearance of the Certificate of Vote, so the format can vary from State to State. The electors must execute six Certificates of Vote. Federal law requires that each Certificate of Vote must:

• list all persons who received electoral votes for President and the number of electors who voted for each person.
• list all persons who received votes for Vice President and the number of electors who voted for each person.
• not contain the names of persons who did not receive electoral votes.
• be signed by all of the electors.
• be attached to an original Certificates of Ascertainment retained by the State.
• must be sealed up and certified by the electors, after being paired with the Certificate of Ascertainment, as containing the list of electoral votes of that State for President and Vice President.

Distribute the Paired Certificates of Vote and Certificates of Ascertainment

Each State must send the six pairs of Certificates to designated Federal and State officials immediately after the meeting of the electors.

When the paired Certificates of Vote and Certificates of Ascertainment have been delivered to the designated Federal and State officials, the States' Electoral College duties are complete.

OFR and NARA

The Archivist of the United States is required by law to perform certain functions relating to the Electoral College (3 U.S.C. §§ 6, 11, 12, 13). The Archivist has delegated the authority to carry out the administration of the Electoral College process to the Director of the Federal Register.

Before Election Day

In the months leading up to Election Day of each Presidential election year, the Archivist sends a letter to the Executive of each State referencing the States’ responsibilities regarding the Electoral College and directing them to this website. OFR prepares to receive the Electoral College Certificates from the States and contacts Congressional staff to make arrangements for the delivery of the Electoral College Certificates to Congress.

During the weeks immediately before and after the general election, OFR interacts with each State to identify those responsible for the Electoral College process within that State.

Receipt of Certificates of Ascertainment

Certificates of Ascertainment should begin arriving at NARA and OFR within a few weeks following election day. NARA's mailroom makes a record of the Certificates of Ascertainment it receives and transmits them to the OFR. OFR logs receipt of the Certificates of Ascertainment it receives, whether from NARA's mailroom or directly from the States, and checks them for facial sufficiency. If there are any problems with a Certificate of Ascertainment, OFR notifies the State's point(s) of contact about the problem. After the Certificates of Ascertainment have been determined to be facially sufficient OFR posts them on this website.

Receipt of Certificates of Vote

Certificates of Vote begin arriving at NARA and OFR shortly after the meeting of the electors. NARA's mailroom makes a record of the Certificates of Vote it receives and transmits them to the OFR. OFR logs receipt of the Certificates of Vote it receives, whether from NARA's mailroom or directly from the States, and checks them for facial legal sufficiency. If there are any problems with a Certificate of Vote, OFR notifies the State's point(s) of contact about the problem. After the Certificates of Vote have been determined to be facially sufficient, OFR posts them on its website.

Certificates of Vote Subject to the Call of the President of the Senate

OFR holds one of the two original Certificate of Vote pairs subject to the call of the President of the Senate in case one or more of the Certificates of Vote fail to reach the Senate on time. If the Archivist does not receive a Certificate of Vote from a State by a week after the meeting of the electors, OFR calls that State's point(s) of contact to make sure the Certificates of Vote were sent and asks the State to trace the package. If OFR does not receive any Certificates of Vote from a State by the deadline for receipt of electoral votes (the fourth Wednesday in December), OFR gets a duplicate original from the chief election officer of the State or the Federal District judge (3 U.S.C. §§ 12 and 13).

Preserving Certificates

After Congress has met in joint session for the official counting of electoral votes, all Certificates of Ascertainment and Certificates of Vote remain available for public inspection at OFR for one year and then are transferred to NARA for permanent retention.

House and Senate staff meet with OFR staff to inspect the Certificates of Vote in late December. If any State’s Certificate fails to reach the President of the Senate, the President of the Senate calls on OFR to deliver duplicate originals in its possession to complete the set held by Congress.

Congress meets in joint session in the House of Representatives on January 6 to count the electoral votes. The Vice President, as President of the Senate, is the presiding officer, whose powers are limited by Federal statute to performing ministerial duties. The President of the Senate opens the votes of the States in alphabetical order, and hands them to the appointed Tellers, who announce the results out loud. The President of the Senate then calls for any objections.

To be recognized, an objection must:

• be submitted in writing
• be signed by at least one-fifth of the House and one-fifth of the Senate
• a. the electors of the State were not lawfully certified under a Certificate of Ascertainment, or
• b. the vote of one or more electors has not been regularly given.

If an objection is recognized, the House and Senate withdraw to their respective chambers to consider the merits of any objections, following the process set out in 3 U.S.C. §§  15 and 17 . After all the votes are recorded and counted, the President of the Senate declares which persons, if any, have been elected President and Vice President of the United States.

On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, the electors meet in their respective States to cast their votes for President and Vice President of the United States. Read more about the qualifications and selection of the electors and restrictions , if any, on how they may vote.

The States*

• Certificates of Ascertainment
• Meeting of electors
• Certificates of Vote

*On this page, "State" includes the District of Columbia and "Governor" includes the Mayor of the District of Columbia.

The Constitution and Federal law do not prescribe the method of appointment other than requiring that electors must be appointed on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November (Election Day). In most States, the political parties nominate slates of electors at State conventions or central committee meetings. Then the citizens of each State appoint the electors by popular vote in the state-wide general election. However, State laws on the appointment of electors may vary.

Under the Constitution, State legislatures have broad powers to direct the process for selecting electors, with one exception regarding the qualifications of electors. Article II, section 1, clause 2 provides that “no Senator, Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States” may be appointed as an elector.

After the general election, the Governor of each State prepares at least seven** original Certificates of Ascertainment listing the persons appointed as electors. Since Federal law does not govern the general appearance of the Certificate of Ascertainment, the format can vary from State to State. However, Federal law requires that each Certificate of Ascertainment must:

• be signed by the Governor and carry the seal of the State.

**States have the option of creating nine original Certificates or seven original Certificates and two certified copies. They then send three original Certificates or one Certificate along with the two certified copies.

Each State must send at least one Certificate of Ascertainment to the Archivist of the United States at OFR as soon as possible after the general election results are finalized. At the very latest, they must be prepared so that the electors are appointed by the meeting of the electors and sent to the Archivist with the Certificates of Vote.

Each State must retain the other six Certificates for legal sufficiency. Each State must retain the other six originals for the State’s meeting of the electors.

On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, the electors meet in their respective States. The State legislature designates where in the State the meeting will take place, usually in the State capital. At this meeting, the electors cast their votes for President and Vice President.

If any electors are unable to carry out their duties on the day of the Electoral College meeting, each State appoints substitute electors following its own laws and procedures. Each State must resolve any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of electors under under its own law at least six days before the meeting of the electors.

Federal law does not govern the general appearance of the Certificate of Vote so the format can vary from State to State. The electors must execute six Certificates of Vote. Federal law requires that each Certificate of Vote must:

• must be sealed and certified by the electors, after being paired with the Certificate of Ascertainment, as containing the list of electoral votes of that State for President and Vice President.

Each State must send the six pairs of Certificates to designated Federal and State officials as soon as possible after the meeting of the electors because the statutory deadline for receipt the electoral votes is just over a week after the meeting of the electors. This is followed closely by the counting of electoral votes in Congress on January 6.

When the paired Certificates of Vote and Certificates of Ascertainment have been delivered to the designated Federal and Sate officials, the States' Electoral College duties are complete.

The Archivist of the United States is required by law to perform certain functions relating to the Electoral College (3 U.S.C. sections 6 , 11 , 12 , 13 ). The Archivist has delegated the authority to carry out the administration of the Electoral College process to the Director of the Federal Register.

In the months leading up to Election Day of each Presidential election year, the Archivist sends a letter to the Governor of each State and the Mayor of the District of Columbia referencing the States’ responsibilities regarding the Electoral College and directing them to this website. OFR prepares to receive the Electoral College Certificates from the States and contacts Congressional staff to make arrangements for the delivery of the Electoral College Certificates to Congress.

After Election Day

During the week following the general election, OFR contacts each State and the Mayor’s Office in the District of Columbia to make a personal contact with a person responsible for the Electoral College process.

Certificates of Ascertainment should begin arriving at NARA and OFR within a few weeks after election day. NARA's mailroom makes a record of the Certificates of Ascertainment it receives and transmits them to the OFR. OFR logs receipt of the Certificates of Ascertainment it receives, whether from NARA's mailroom or directly from the States, and checks them for facial sufficiency. If there are any problems with a Certificate of Ascertainment, OFR tells the contact person in the State about the problem. After the Certificates of Ascertainment have been determined to be facially sufficient OFR posts them on this website.

Certificates of Vote begin arriving at NARA and OFR shortly after the Meeting of the Electors. NARA's mailroom makes a record of the Certificates of Vote it receives and transmits them to the OFR. OFR logs receipt of the Certificates of Vote it receives, whether from NARA's mailroom or directly from the States, and checks them for facial legal sufficiency. If there are any problems with a Certificate of Vote, OFR tells the contact person in the State about the problem. After the Certificates of Vote have been determined to be facially sufficient OFR posts them on its website.

OFR holds one of the two original Certificates of Vote subject to the call of the President of the Senate in case one or more of the Certificates of Vote fail to reach the Senate on time. If the Archivist does not receive a Certificate of Vote from a State by a week after the meeting of the electors, OFR calls that State's contact person to make sure the Certificates of Vote were sent and asks the State to trace the package. If OFR does not receive any Certificates of Vote from a State by the deadline for receipt of electoral votes, OFR gets a duplicate original from the Secretary of State of the State or the Federal District judge (3 U.S.C. sections 12 and 13 ).

Congress meets in joint session in the House of Representatives on January 6 to count the electoral votes. The Vice President, as President of the Senate, is the presiding officer. Tellers open, present, and record the votes of the States in alphabetical order. The President of the Senate announces the results of the State vote and then calls for any objections. To be recognized, an objection must be submitted in writing and be signed by at least one member of the House and one Senator. If an objection is recognized, the House and Senate withdraw to their respective chambers to consider the merits of any objections, following the process set out in 3 U.S.C. § 15 . After all the votes are recorded and counted, the President of the Senate declares which persons, if any, have been elected President and Vice President of the United States.

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Electoral College vs. popular vote in the United States

Graphic shows scenario in which a presidential candidate can win the popular vote but lose the election.;

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WASHINGTON (AP) — WHY IS IT THAT ONE CANDIDATE CAN WIN THE POPULAR VOTE BUT ANOTHER WINS THE ELECTORAL VOTE AND THUS THE PRESIDENCY?

That’s how the framers of the Constitution set it up.

This unique system of electing presidents is a big reason why Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016. Four candidates in history have won the popular vote only to be denied the presidency by the Electoral College.

The Electoral College was devised at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It was a compromise between those who wanted direct popular elections for president and those who preferred to have Congress decide. At a time of little national identity and competition among the states, there were concerns that people would favor their regional candidates and that big states with denser populations would dominate the vote.

The Electoral College has 538 members, with the number allocated to each state based on how many representatives it has in the House plus its two senators. (The District of Columbia gets three, despite the fact that the home to Congress has no vote in Congress.)

To be elected president, the winner must get at least half plus one — or 270 electoral votes.

This hybrid system means that more weight is given to a single vote in a small state than the vote of someone in a large state, leading to outcomes at times that have been at odds with the popular vote.

In fact, part of a presidential candidate’s campaign strategy is drawing a map of states the candidate can and must win to gather 270 electoral votes.

In 2016, for instance, Democrat Hillary Clinton received nearly 2.9 million more votes than Trump in the presidential election, after racking up more lopsided wins in big states like New York and California. But she lost the presidency due to Trump’s winning margin in the Electoral College, which came after he pulled out narrow victories in less populated Midwestern states like Michigan and Wisconsin.

It would take a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College — an unlikely move because of how difficult it is to pass and ratify constitutional changes. But there’s a separate movement that calls for a compact of states to allocate all their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner, regardless of how those individual states opted in an election. That still faces an uphill climb, though.

This new series from the AP is dedicated to answering commonly asked questions from our audience about the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

READ: Why the second time will be worse

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Proportional representation, explained

• Shaping the Democracy of Tomorrow
• Research & Analysis
• December 5, 2023

How our electoral system shapes our politics

Proportional representation is an electoral system that elects multiple representatives in each district in proportion to the number of people who vote for them. If one third of voters back a political party, the party’s candidates win roughly one-third of the seats. Today, proportional representation is the most common electoral system among the world’s democracies. 

How is this different from what the United States uses? 

According to scholarly research, winner-take-all elections are causing or aggravating some of the most pressing problems undermining American democracy. These include: 

With winner-take-all, 51 percent (and sometimes less) of the electorate wins 100 percent of the representation in a district. This leads to unrepresentative outcomes. For example, despite a third of Massachusetts reliably voting Republican, Democrats control all nine U.S. House seats. Likewise, in Oklahoma, while a third of the electorate votes for Democrats, all five of its House seats are Republican.

Winner-take-all systems are uniquely susceptible to gerrymandering. But in proportional systems, manipulating district lines for partisan gain is often functionally impossible — multi-winner districts are simply too difficult to gerrymander. Want to get rid of gerrymandering? Adopt a system of proportional representation.

Winner-take-all elections uniquely disadvantage racial, ethnic, religious, and other political minorities, especially when they do not live in geographically concentrated areas and with district lines deliberately drawn around them. By contrast, minority representation tends to improve under proportional systems by allowing groups to win representation in proportion to their numbers , regardless of where they live.

Because winner-take-all elections make it easy for a single party to dominate in a district, they tend to depress political competition. As soon as a party can count on 55-60% of the vote, a district becomes “safe.” Except in a small number of swing districts, competition shifts to low-turnout primaries where candidates tend to be pulled to the extremes . By contrast, proportional systems tend to be more competitive: with more seats in contention per district, more parties and their candidates are incentivized to compete.

Winner-take-all systems tend to produce two-party systems, which are more likely to increase affective polarization — meaning voters from opposing parties don’t just disagree with one another, but come to reflexively distrust and dislike one another. Because multi-winner races create space for more than two parties, proportional representation tends to produce more fluid coalitions, which research finds helps to temper polarization .

By definition, winner-take-all elections are high stakes. Marginal differences in support for either of two parties can mean total victory or total defeat. Politicians are often incentivized to do everything they can to beat their opponents, even at the expense of problem solving, good governance, or maintaining democratic norms. Voters and politicians who lose in winner-take-all elections are less likely to trust democratic institutions , and more likely to resort to violence .

Researchers are especially concerned about the use of winner-take-all elections in highly polarized and diverse societies like the United States. As one global study of democratization concluded, “if any generalization about institutional design is sustainable,” it is that winner-take-all electoral systems “are ill-advised for countries with deep ethnic, regional, religious, or other emotional and polarizing divisions.”

‘[I]f any generalization about institutional design is sustainable,’ it is that winner-take-all electoral systems ‘are ill-advised for countries with deep ethnic, regional, religious, or other emotional and polarizing divisions.’ Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation

Potential benefits of proportional representation

Varieties of proportional representation.

In practice, proportional representation comes in many different versions. Most fit into one of four categories. 

Open List 

Think: Voting for a candidate and their party

In open list systems, each political party has a slate of candidates running for office (as in a primary election), and voters choose a candidate from one of the lists. Parties are allocated seats in proportion to the total number of votes their candidates receive, and the candidates who receive the most votes are elected. For example, a voter may select one Democrat from a list of Democrats running. In a six-seat district, if the Democrats together win 50 percent of the vote, the three Democratic candidates with the most votes are elected.

Closed List

Think: Voting for a party, not for a candidate

In closed list systems, voters select a political party on a ballot rather than an individual candidate. Parties are allocated seats in proportion to the votes they receive, and candidates are seated in the order determined by the party itself. For example, a voter may select the Republican Party on the ballot, but not an individual candidate. In a six-seat district, if Republicans win 50 percent of the vote, the party is allocated three seats, and the top-three candidates on the party’s list are elected.

Mixed-Member Systems

Think: Proportional representation layered on top of single-member districts

Many countries use systems that blend components of winner-take-all and proportional representation, combining single-member districts with some number of additional seats allocated to parties proportionally. Voters make two choices: one for their single-winner district and one for a set of statewide seats allocated proportionally. For example, a given state could have three single-winner districts and three proportional seats. A party that gets 40% of the vote statewide could lose all three single-winner seats but still win one or two of the proportional seats.

Single Transferable Vote 

Think: Ranking candidate choices across the ballot

Some countries use a system where voters rank candidates, regardless of their party, and the top-ranked candidates are elected. Through successive rounds of ballot counting, votes are reallocated to lower preferences as candidates are either elected or eliminated. This goes on until the seats are filled. For example, if a voter’s first choice candidate comes in last, the candidate is eliminated and the vote is reallocated to the voter’s next preference in the next round of counting. Additionally, if a candidate gets more than the amount of votes needed to win a seat, the additional votes are also reallocated to the voters’ lower preferences.

It is clear that our winner-take-all system — where each U.S. House district is represented by a single person — is fundamentally broken. LETTER TO CONGRESS FROM 200+ POLITICAL SCIENTISTS, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Is proportional representation connected to ranked-choice voting?

Ranking candidates is a method of voting that is possible under both winner-take-all and proportional systems. While ranked-choice voting and proportional representation are compatible, they are also distinct reforms.

What about fusion voting?

Fusion voting, which allows multiple parties to nominate the same candidate and “fuse” their support, is distinct from proportional representation and generally is only used with single-member districts. However, the two reforms share many of the same goals, such as making it easier for more parties to form, permitting more options for voters, and enabling more fluid political coalitions. 

Learn more →

Won’t more parties just lead to more gridlock and chaos?

While certain proportional systems are designed in a way that can generate dozens of parties (which can be destabilizing), most do not. Research finds that modest multiparty activity can lead to more effective governance, while two polarized parties can lead to dangerous levels of gridlock, as well as destabilizing change from one government to the next.

How can this be implemented in Congress?

Adopting proportional representation for the U.S. House is possible through regular lawmaking. Congress could implement proportional representation, or rather, give states the ability to experiment with different versions, through legislation alone. No constitutional amendment is needed.

Can proportional representation work in a presidential system?

Proportional representation is just as common in countries with presidential systems as it is in countries with parliamentary systems. In fact, presidential systems are more likely to use proportional representation for their legislatures, while combining presidentialism with winner-take-all is a rarity found only in four countries (the U.S., Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone). 

What about state and local elections?

Any lawmaking body, from national and state legislatures to city councils and school boards, can be elected proportionally. Just like for Congress, implementing proportional representation in state legislatures could increase competition and representation and decrease polarization and antidemocratic extremism. But importantly, it could also encourage the de-nationalization of politics and a return to more localized concerns. 

Is large-scale electoral system change politically possible?

While changing electoral systems is politically difficult, it is far from impossible. Indeed, most democracies around the world have changed their electoral systems at least once, if not more. Several notable examples of reform in recent decades — New Zealand, Japan, and others — help illustrate how change can happen.

How would proportional representation work with the Voting Rights Act?

As long as proportional representation leads to minority representation that is as equivalent or better than winner-take-all outcomes, it is compatible with existing voting rights law. And in most cases, it expands the possibilities for minority representation beyond what is possible under winner-take-all rules. 

How does proportional representation fix gerrymandering?

The more seats a district has, the harder that district is to gerrymander. Most multi-winner districts are functionally impossible to manipulate for partisan gain. With a lower threshold required to win each seat, voters can no longer be predictably “cracked” between districts or “packed” into one district with any real effect.

How would proportional representation impact constituent services?

We don’t know for sure. However, all voters are, today, already serviced by three legislators: a congressperson and two senators. Research finds that constituent services may improve, as representatives compete with each other to provide better service and voters can select and engage with representatives who best represent their community and interests. Under proportional representation, most voters could contact a representative for whom they voted . 

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Many voters say Congress is broken. Could proportional representation fix it?

Hansi Lo Wang

A perimeter fence surrounds the U.S. Capitol in February ahead of President Biden's State of the Union speech in Washington, D.C. Mariam Zuhaib/AP hide caption

A perimeter fence surrounds the U.S. Capitol in February ahead of President Biden's State of the Union speech in Washington, D.C.

With an increasingly polarized Congress and fewer competitive elections , there are growing calls among some election reformers to change how voters elect members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

One potential alternative to the current winner-take-all approach for House races is known as proportional representation.

Instead of the single candidate with the most votes winning a House district's seat, a proportional representation system would elect multiple representatives in each district, distributing seats in the legislature roughly in proportion to the votes each party receives.

Supporters say proportional representation could help temper the rise of political extremism, eliminate the threat of gerrymandering and ensure the fair representation of people of color, as well as voters who are outnumbered in reliably "red" or "blue" parts of the country.

This story is part of a series of reports on alternatives to how U.S. voters cast ballots and elect their political leaders. Click here for more NPR voting stories .

And last year, a group of more than 200 political scientists, legal scholars and historians across the U.S. said the time for Congress to change is now.

"Our arcane, single-member districting process divides, polarizes, and isolates us from each other," they wrote in an open letter to lawmakers. "It has effectively extinguished competitive elections for most Americans, and produced a deeply divided political system that is incapable of responding to changing demands and emerging challenges with necessary legitimacy."

But how exactly proportional representation could change House elections is an open question with major hurdles. There's a federal law that bans it, and many of its supporters acknowledge it would likely be years, if not decades, before a majority of lawmakers allow such a big, untested restructuring of Congress.

What could proportional representation in the House look like?

There's a spectrum of ways to reform the House using proportional representation. Two key factors are how many representatives a multi-member district would have and how winners of House seats would be proportionally allocated.

In 2021, Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia led a group of other House Democrats in reintroducing a proposal that's been floating around Congress since 2017 . The Fair Representation Act would require states to use ranked choice voting for House races. It calls for states with six or more representatives to create districts with three to five members each, and states with fewer than six representatives to elect all of them as at-large members of one statewide district.

Some advocates also raise the possibility of increasing the total number of House seats, which has been stuck at 435 seats for decades .

Stuck at 435 representatives? Why the U.S. House hasn't grown with census counts

While there's no consensus on the mechanics, supporters say moving toward proportional representation could allow the country's diversity to be better represented — including in communities where elections, outside of primaries, have become non-competitive.

"When you're looking at New York City, where I live, it's a city of almost 8.5 million people. And there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Republican voters who find themselves in districts with lopsided Democratic majorities," says Reihan Salam, a Brooklyn-based Republican who heads the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, and has written in support of proportional representation .

Salam sees proportional representation as "something that would be hugely healthy for our politics to see to it that you don't just have competitive elections in a small, tiny handful of swing districts or swing states."

And that increased competition could push political parties to be more willing to compromise and negotiate, says Didi Kuo, a fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Kuo, who has studied versions of proportional representation systems in New Zealand, Italy and Japan, notes that many other democracies around the world have rewritten their rules "when some people are marginalized or excluded from representation, or when votes are not being translated into seats."

"How would you like it if there were a system where you could at least ensure that one person you like gets elected or one person of the party that you support?" Kuo says about what proportional representation could offer.

It could also lead to the rise of more political parties, which supporters say could boost voter turnout by expanding voters' choices in candidates.

But that could come with complications, warns Ruth Bloch Rubin, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago.

"We've seen how difficult it was to elect a speaker with just two parties, that when you introduce multiple parties, it increases the odds that you're going to have collective action problems, coordination problems. It's just going to be slower and harder to get people to reach agreement," says Bloch Rubin, who has written about the potential challenges that could come with switching from the current system of two major parties.

Why is proportional representation in the House against the law?

In 1967, Congress passed a law that bans a House district from electing more than one representative.

Courts hearing redistricting lawsuits at the time were considering ordering states with contested maps to use multi-member districts and hold statewide at-large elections as a temporary fix — a scenario that many lawmakers wanted to avoid. After the Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law, many lawmakers also wanted to block southern states from using multi-member districts and at-large, winner-take-all elections for the House to weaken the voting power of Black voters.

Since then, lawmakers, including Beyer, have introduced bills that would undo that requirement of single-member congressional districts and allow for multi-member districts.

Former Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell of California is seen in 2010. While serving in Congress back in 1999, Campbell testified in support of multi-member districts, which he says he still supports. Paul Sakuma/AP hide caption

While serving in Congress back in 1999, now-former Republican Rep. Tom Campbell of California testified in support of multi-member districts, which he says he still supports.

"No one looks at the House of Representatives today and says, 'There's a good model of functioning governance.' No one says that. And so the interest in trying something else has never been higher," says Campbell, who is now a law professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and has left the GOP to form the Common Sense Party of California.

But in recent years, there's been no public support for proportional representation from Republicans in Congress, which Campbell sees as a sign of how polarized Capitol Hill has become.

"A Republican who puts her name or his name on such a bill will be targeted in the next primary election for the simple reason that you are attempting to move towards a system that might allow more members of Congress who are not Republican," Campbell says.

For many representatives, regardless of party, there's not a lot of incentive to try and disrupt the status quo that got them elected, says Bloch Rubin, the political scientist at the University of Chicago.

"Everyone's adapted their campaign and electoral strategies for the way the rules currently function," Bloch Rubin adds.

Term limits for Congress are wildly popular. But most experts say they'd be a bad idea

The U.S. has a 'primary problem,' say advocates who call for new election systems

How could proportional representation ensure fair representation for people of color.

The U.S. Supreme Court's weakening of the Voting Rights Act over the past decade has helped fuel interest in proportional representation among some civil rights advocates.

While the high court upheld its past rulings on a key remaining section of that landmark law, the loss of other legal protections against racial discrimination in the election process has made it harder to ensure fair representation for people of color around the country.

"If you go into communities of color, they're increasingly disillusioned with the political process. And the system that we have now, in many ways, adds to that disillusionment," says Alora Thomas-Lundborg, strategic director of litigation and advocacy at Harvard Law School's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. "It's a winner-take-all system, meaning that if you happen to be in a district where you don't represent the plurality of votes, then you just get no representation and folks feel as though they're not represented. And even when you're in a district where maybe you are being represented, if that district is no longer competitive, you may still feel that your elected representative is not responsive to your needs because they're not out there having to curry your vote."

For communities of color, proportional representation could, in theory, set up a House of Representatives that is more reflective of their shares of the U.S. population, which is becoming increasingly diverse in terms of race and ethnicity, Thomas-Lundborg adds.

But that promise is untested.

Thomas-Lundborg says more state and local governments adopting proportional representation systems could help assuage some concerns about what impact it would actually have in racially and ethnically diverse parts of the country.

"We are at a point where we're asking a lot of questions and trying to think about the future as the nature of the Supreme Court is changing and the demographics of our country is changing," Thomas-Lundborg says. "And it's a really important time to start thinking proactively about these issues."

Edited by Benjamin Swasey

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Chapter 12: The Presidency

The Presidential Election Process

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe changes over time in the way the president and vice president are selected
• Identify the stages in the modern presidential selection process
• Assess the advantages and disadvantages of the Electoral College

The process of electing a president every four years has evolved over time. This evolution has resulted from attempts to correct the cumbersome procedures first offered by the framers of the Constitution and as a result of political parties’ rising power to act as gatekeepers to the presidency. Over the last several decades, the manner by which parties have chosen candidates has trended away from congressional caucuses and conventions and towards a drawn-out series of state contests, called primaries and caucuses, which begin in the winter prior to the November general election.

SELECTING THE CANDIDATE: THE PARTY PROCESS

The framers of the Constitution made no provision in the document for the establishment of political parties. Indeed, parties were not necessary to select the first president, since George Washington ran unopposed. Following the first election of Washington, the political party system gained steam and power in the electoral process, creating separate nomination and general election stages. Early on, the power to nominate presidents for office bubbled up from the party operatives in the various state legislatures and toward what was known as the king caucus or congressional caucus. The caucus or large-scale gathering was made up of legislators in the Congress who met informally to decide on nominees from their respective parties. In somewhat of a countervailing trend in the general election stage of the process, by the presidential election of 1824, many states were using popular elections to choose their electors. This became important in that election when Andrew Jackson won the popular vote and the largest number of electors, but the presidency was given to John Quincy Adams instead. Out of the frustration of Jackson’s supporters emerged a powerful two-party system that took control of the selection process. [1]

In the decades that followed, party organizations, party leaders, and workers met in national conventions to choose their nominees, sometimes after long struggles that took place over multiple ballots. In this way, the political parties kept a tight control on the selection of a candidate. In the early twentieth century, however, some states began to hold primaries, elections in which candidates vied for the support of state delegations to the party’s nominating convention. Over the course of the century, the primaries gradually became a far more important part of the process, though the party leadership still controlled the route to nomination through the convention system. This has changed in recent decades, and now a majority of the delegates are chosen through primary elections, and the party conventions themselves are little more than a widely publicized rubber-stamping event.

The rise of the presidential primary and caucus system as the main means by which presidential candidates are selected has had a number of anticipated and unanticipated consequences. For one, the campaign season has grown longer and more costly. In 1960, John F. Kennedy declared his intention to run for the presidency just eleven months before the general election. Compare this to Hillary Clinton, who announced her intention to run nearly two years before the 2008 general election. Today’s long campaign seasons are seasoned with a seemingly ever-increasing number of debates among contenders for the nomination. In 2016, when the number of candidates for the Republican nomination became large and unwieldy, two debates among them were held, in which only those candidates polling greater support were allowed in the more important prime-time debate. The runners-up spoke in the other debate. In 2020, it was the Democratic party that had a large field that required staggered debates, before the field narrowed and ultimately led to the nomination of former vice president Joe Biden, who would go on to choose fellow campaigner Kamala Harris as his running mate.

Finally, the process of going straight to the people through primaries and caucuses has created some opportunities for party outsiders to rise. Neither Ronald Reagan nor Bill Clinton was especially popular with the party leadership of the Republicans or the Democrats (respectively) at the outset. The outsider phenomenon has been most clearly demonstrated, however, in the 2016 presidential nominating process, as those distrusted by the party establishment, such as Senator Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, who never before held political office, raced ahead of party favorites like Jeb Bush early in the primary process ( Figure 12.6 ).

The rise of the primary system during the Progressive Era came at the cost of party regulars’ control of the process of candidate selection. Some party primaries even allow registered independents or members of the opposite party to vote. Even so, the process tends to attract the party faithful at the expense of independent voters, who often hold the key to victory in the fall contest. Thus, candidates who want to succeed in the primary contests seek to align themselves with committed partisans, who are often at the ideological extreme. Those who survive the primaries in this way have to moderate their image as they enter the general election if they hope to succeed among the rest of the party adherents and the uncommitted.

Primaries offer tests of candidates’ popular appeal, while state caucuses testify to their ability to mobilize and organize grassroots support among committed followers. Primaries also reward candidates in different ways, with some giving the winner all the state’s convention delegates, while others distribute delegates proportionately according to the distribution of voter support. Finally, the order in which the primary elections and caucus selections are held shape the overall race. [2] Currently, the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary occur first. These early contests tend to shrink the field as candidates who perform poorly leave the race. At other times in the campaign process, some states will maximize their impact on the race by holding their primaries on the same day that other states do. The media has dubbed these critical groupings “Super Tuesdays,” “Super Saturdays,” and so on. They tend to occur later in the nominating process as parties try to force the voters to coalesce around a single nominee.

The rise of the primary has also displaced the convention itself as the place where party regulars choose their standard bearer. Once true contests in which party leaders fought it out to elect a candidate, by the 1970s, party conventions more often than not simply served to rubber-stamp the choice of the primaries. By the 1980s, the convention drama was gone, replaced by a long, televised commercial designed to extol the party’s greatness ( Figure 12.7 ). Without the drama and uncertainty, major news outlets have steadily curtailed their coverage of the conventions, convinced that few people are interested. The 2016 elections seem to support the idea that the primary process produces a nominee rather than party insiders. Outsiders Donald Trump on the Republican side and Senator Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side had much success despite significant concerns about them from party elites. Whether this pattern could be reversed in the case of a closely contested selection process remains to be seen.

ELECTING THE PRESIDENT: THE GENERAL ELECTION

Early presidential elections, conducted along the lines of the original process outlined in the Constitution, proved unsatisfactory. So long as George Washington was a candidate, his election was a foregone conclusion. But it took some manipulation of the votes of electors to ensure that the second-place winner (and thus the vice president) did not receive the same number of votes. When Washington declined to run again after two terms, matters worsened. In 1796, political rivals John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were elected president and vice president, respectively. Yet the two men failed to work well together during Adams’s administration, much of which Jefferson spent at his Virginia residence at Monticello. As noted earlier in this chapter, the shortcomings of the system became painfully evident in 1800, when Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr finished tied, thus leaving it to the House of Representatives to elect Jefferson. [3]

The Twelfth Amendment, ratified in 1804, provided for the separate election of president and vice president as well as setting out ways to choose a winner if no one received a majority of the electoral votes. Only once since the passage of the Twelfth Amendment, during the election of 1824, has the House selected the president under these rules, and only once, in 1836, has the Senate chosen the vice president. In several elections, such as in 1876 and 1888, a candidate who received less than a majority of the popular vote has claimed the presidency, including cases when the losing candidate secured a majority of the popular vote. A recent case was the 2000 election, in which Democratic nominee Al Gore won the popular vote, while Republican nominee George W. Bush won the Electoral College vote and hence the presidency. The 2016 election brought another such irregularity as Donald Trump comfortably won the Electoral College by narrowly winning the popular vote in several states, while Hillary Clinton collected nearly 2.9 million more votes nationwide.

Not everyone is satisfied with how the Electoral College fundamentally shapes the election, especially in cases such as those noted above, when a candidate with a minority of the popular vote claims victory over a candidate who drew more popular support. Yet movements for electoral reform, including proposals for a straightforward nationwide direct election by popular vote, have gained little traction.

Supporters of the current system defend it as a manifestation of federalism, arguing that it also guards against the chaos inherent in a multiparty environment by encouraging the current two-party system. They point out that under a system of direct election, candidates would focus their efforts on more populous regions and ignore others. [4] Critics, on the other hand, charge that the current system negates the one-person, one-vote basis of U.S. elections, subverts majority rule, works against political participation in states deemed safe for one party, and might lead to chaos should an elector desert a candidate, thus thwarting the popular will. Despite all this, the system remains in place. It appears that many people are more comfortable with the problems of a flawed system than with the uncertainty of change. [5]

GET CONNECTED!

Electoral college reform.

Following the 2000 presidential election, when then-governor George W. Bush won by a single electoral vote and with over half a million fewer individual votes than his challenger, astonished voters called for Electoral College reform. Years later, however, nothing of any significance had been done. The absence of reform in the wake of such a problematic election is a testament to the staying power of the Electoral College. The 2016 election results were even more disparate. While in 2000, Al Gore won a narrow victory in the popular vote with Bush prevailing by one vote in the Electoral College, in 2016, Clinton won the popular vote by a margin of almost 3 million votes, while Trump won the Electoral College comfortably. In 2020, the results aligned, with Joe Biden winning the popular vote and Electoral College by comfortable margins, although several battleground states were very close.

Those who insist that the Electoral College should be reformed argue that its potential benefits pale in comparison to the way the Electoral College depresses voter turnout and fails to represent the popular will. In addition to favoring small states, since individual votes there count more than in larger states due to the mathematics involved in the distribution of electors, the Electoral College results in a significant number of “safe” states that receive no real electioneering, such that nearly 75 percent of the country is ignored in the general election.

One potential solution to the problems with the Electoral College is to scrap it all together and replace it with the popular vote. The popular vote would be the aggregated totals of the votes in the fifty states and District of Columbia, as certified by the head election official of each state. A second solution often mentioned is to make the Electoral College proportional. That is, as each state assigns it electoral votes, it would do so based on the popular vote percentage in their state, rather with the winner-take-all approach almost all the states use today.

A third alternative for Electoral College reform has been proposed by an organization called National Popular Vote. The National Popular Vote movement is an interstate compact between multiple states that sign onto the compact. Once a combination of states constituting 270 Electoral College votes supports the movement, each state entering the compact pledges all of its Electoral College votes to the national popular vote winner. This reform does not technically change the Electoral College structure, but it results in a mandated process that makes the Electoral College reflect the popular vote. Thus far, fifteen states and the District of Columbia with a total of 196 electoral votes among them have signed onto the compact.

In what ways does the current Electoral College system protect the representative power of small states and less densely populated regions? Why might it be important to preserve these protections?

Follow-up activity: View the National Popular Vote website to learn more about their position. Consider reaching out to them to learn more, offer your support, or even to argue against their proposal.

LINK TO LEARNING

See how the Electoral College and the idea of swing states fundamentally shapes elections by experimenting with the interactive Electoral College map at 270 to Win.

The general election usually features a series of debates between the presidential contenders as well as a debate among vice presidential candidates. Because the stakes are high, quite a bit of money and resources are expended on all sides. Attempts to rein in the mounting costs of modern general-election campaigns have proven ineffective. Nor has public funding helped to solve the problem. Indeed, starting with Barack Obama’s 2008 decision to forfeit public funding so as to skirt the spending limitations imposed, candidates now regularly opt to raise more money rather than to take public funding. [6] In addition, political action committees (PACs), supposedly focused on issues rather than specific candidates, seek to influence the outcome of the race by supporting or opposing a candidate according to the PAC’s own interests. But after all the spending and debating is done, those who have not already voted by other means set out on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November to cast their votes. Several weeks later, the electoral votes are counted and the president is formally elected ( Figure 12.8 ).

CHAPTER REVIEW

See the Chapter 12.2 Review for a summary of this section, the key vocabulary , and some review questions to check your knowledge.

• Daniel Myron Greene. 1908. “The Evolution of the National Political Convention,”  The Sewanee Review 16, No. 2: 228–32. ↵
• Marty Cohen. 2008.  The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations before and after Reform . Chicago: University of Chicago ↵
• James Roger Sharp. 2010.  The Deadlocked Election of 1800: Jefferson, Burr, and the Union in the Balance . Lawrence: University Press of Kansas ↵
• John Samples, “In Defense of the Electoral College,” 10 November 2000, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/defense-electoral-college (May 1, 2016). ↵
• John Samples, “In Defense of the Electoral College,” 10 November 2000, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/defense-electoral-college (May 1, 2016) ↵
• Jason Scott-Sheets, “Public financing is available for presidential candidates. So what’s not to like about free money?” 14 April 2016, http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/04/public-financing-is-available-for-presidential-candidates-so-whats-not-to-like-about-free-money/. ↵

an informal meeting held in the nineteenth century, sometimes called a congressional caucus, made up of legislators in the Congress who met to decide on presidential nominees for their respective parties

a form of candidate nomination that occurs in a town-hall style format rather than a day-long election; usually reserved for presidential elections

the constitutionally created group of individuals, chosen by the states, with the responsibility of formally selecting the next U.S. president

American Government (3e - Third Edition) Copyright © by OpenStax and Lumen Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Proportional Representation

Proportional representation is the idea that the seats in parliament should be in proportion to the votes cast.

What is proportional representation?

There are lots of different ways to decide who gets to sit in parliament, some are more proportional and some are less. A more proportional way would mean that a party that received one-third of the vote could expect one-third of the seats in parliament.

Ways of electing MPs like  Party List Proportional Representation , the Single Transferable Vote and the Additional Member System , have been designed with the aim of being more proportional.

Other methods, such as Westminster’s  First Past the Post , the Alternative Vote and Supplementary Vote can be reasonably proportional in the right circumstances, but will usually not be. These are known as ‘majoritarian’ and it means that a party who get one-third of the vote might get one-third of the seats, or they might get half or none at all.

Within the more proportional systems, there are different ways of electing MPs. With some, you only vote for a party , with others, you vote directly for candidates .

Rather than the all-or-nothing approach of First Past the Post, each area elects more than one representative. The size of this area can vary according to the system, ranging from the size of the whole country to a county or village. This means that you have a team of MPs that reflect the strength of the different political opinions in your area.

Jonathan Reynolds MP spoke on behalf of the 6,000 who wrote to their MPs, the 500,000 who signed petitions and the tens of millions whose votes were wasted by First Past the Post.

A cross-party group of 74 MPs supported Caroline Lucas' motion to bring in a bill on proportional representation and extending the franchise in July 2016

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Our democratic institutions urgently need strengthening against authoritarian threats.

In May and June 2024, the Brennan Center organized five nonpartisan tabletop exercises premised on an authoritarian candidate winning the presidency to test the resilience of democratic institutions. The antidemocratic executive actions explored in the scenarios were based on former President Donald Trump’s public statements about his plans for a potential second term in office.  

We do not predict whether Trump will win the November election, and we take no position on how Americans should cast their votes. What we have done is simulated how authoritarian elements of Trump’s agenda, if he is elected, might play out against lawful efforts to check abuses of power.

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These scenarios were overseen by Barton Gellman, senior adviser at the Brennan Center, along with Rosa Brooks and Nils Gilman. Gellman’s focus is on building safeguards against threats to democracy in the 2024 election and in the presidential administration to come in 2025.

Gellman came to the Brennan Center from the Atlantic , where he was an award-winning staff writer. He is the author most recently of  Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State  and the best-selling  Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency . He has previously served as senior fellow at the Century Foundation, lecturer at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and visiting research collaborator at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy. Before joining the Atlantic , Gellman spent 21 years at the Washington Post , where he served tours as a legal, diplomatic, military, and Middle East correspondent.

Gellman anchored the team that won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the National Security Agency and Edward Snowden. He was previously awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series on Vice President Dick Cheney. He was a member of the team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for coverage of the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath. Other professional honors include two George Polk Awards, two Overseas Press Club Awards, two Emmy Awards for a PBS Frontline documentary, Harvard’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

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proportional representation , electoral system that seeks to create a representative body that reflects the overall distribution of public support for each political party . Where majority or plurality systems effectively reward strong parties and penalize weak ones by providing the representation of a whole constituency to a single candidate who may have received fewer than half of the votes cast (as is the case, for example, in the United States), proportional representation ensures minority groups a measure of representation proportionate to their electoral support. Systems of proportional representation have been adopted in many countries, including Belgium, Denmark, Finland , Greece, Hungary, Israel , Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Russia , Spain, Sweden , and Switzerland .

Advocates for proportional representation argue that an election is like a census of opinion as to how the country should be governed, and only if an assembly represents the full diversity of opinion within a country can its decisions be regarded as legitimate . For example, proponents maintain that the plurality system can produce unrepresentative, minority governments, such as in the United Kingdom, where the two major parties governed the country for the last three decades of the 20th century with little more than 40 percent of the votes. The proportional system also is suggested as a means of redressing the possible anomaly arising under majority or plurality systems whereby a party may win more seats with fewer popular votes than its opponents, as occurred in the British elections of 1951 and February 1974.

Critics of proportional representation contend that in an election a country is making a decision, and the function of the electoral system is to achieve a consensus rather than a census of opinion. Opponents argue further that, by making it possible for small parties to be represented, proportional representation encourages the formation of splinter parties that can result in weak and unstable government.

Unlike the plurality system, which uses single-member districts, proportional representation systems use multimember constituencies . Systematic methods of applying proportional representation were first developed in the mid-19th century in Denmark by Carl Andrae and in Britain by Thomas Hare and John Stuart Mill . Methods currently in use include the single-transferable-vote method (STV), the party- list system , and the additional-member system.

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Appeals Court Further Narrows Voting Rights Act’s Scope

Reversing decades of precedent, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in a Texas case that different minority groups cannot jointly claim that their votes have been diluted.

By Michael Wines and J. David Goodman

A federal appeals court further narrowed the scope of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, ruling that members of separate minority groups cannot join together to claim that a political map has been drawn to dilute their voting power.

The 12-to-6 ruling on Thursday by the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned almost four decades of legal precedent, as well as earlier rulings by a three-judge panel of the same appeals court and, before that, a federal district court. It applies only in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, the three states where the court has jurisdiction. But the decision, which deals with a fairly common issue in redistricting, has national implications.

The case involves a district map for county commissioners in Galveston County, Texas. Mark Henry, the elected county judge who oversees the Republican-dominated commissioner’s court that drew the map, called the ruling “a great win for the rule of law and the Constitution.” Mr. Henry is a defendant in the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs in the case, including the Justice Department and branches of the N.A.A.C.P. and the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, have not decided whether to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. But lawyers for the plaintiffs noted that the decision handed down on Thursday ordered the federal district court to reconsider two other claims from the original lawsuit — that the county had intentionally discriminated against minority voters, and that it had engaged in illegal racial gerrymandering. So the map could still be found illegal on those grounds.

“We still have a lifeline,” said Robert Quintero, the president of the Galveston chapter of LULAC. “We won at this court before, and we hope that the judge will use his same wisdom that he used in the first decision.”

A lawyer for the Black and Latino voters who brought the suit, Mark P. Gaber of the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center, said the argument that their voting power had been diluted remained strong.

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McCaul, Cardin, Chairs of European Foreign Affairs Committees on Attempts to Undermine Venezuelan Elections

Washington, D.C. – Today, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin (D-MD) joined the Chairs of the Foreign Affairs Committees of Armenia, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine in issuing a historic joint statement on Venezuela’s disputed presidential election reported by  Reuters . 

“As Chairs of Foreign Affairs Committees of our respective national parliaments, we strongly condemn the ongoing attempts in Venezuela to undermine the will of the voters and repress the Venezuelan people following Sunday’s election. Based on the available evidence and statements from independent electoral observers, we do not recognize the National Electoral Council’s (CNE) fraudulent and unverifiable declaration that Maduro won re-election as a legitimate representation of the Venezuelan people’s will.

“We call on the Maduro regime to allow for transparent, independent verification of the electoral results immediately. The regime’s deliberate efforts to undermine the country’s electoral process — by failing to adhere to international standards of electoral integrity, restricting the freedoms of opposition political actors and the media, and harassing and intimidating those connected to the opposition’s campaign, as documented by the Carter Center’s electoral observation mission—are unacceptable and must be condemned.

“Ending the violent repression of Venezuelans and the persecution of opposition leaders Maria Corina Machado, Edmundo González, and their teams is an urgent imperative strongly shared by all of us, as is the urgent need for negotiations between the Maduro regime and Edmundo González to ensure a peaceful and democratic transition of power. Our governments are closely monitoring the situation in Venezuela, and will work together to hold Maduro accountable should he continue to disregard the democratic will of Venezuelan voters to steal yet another election.

“Amid this struggle, the democratic opposition has released an estimated 80% of the paper vote tallies from across the nation, revealing a resounding electoral victory for Edmundo González. This data is a representation of the voices of the Venezuelan people—voices that cannot be silenced by fraud or intimidation. The National Electoral Council’s refusal to provide transparent documentation only deepens the crisis of legitimacy surrounding the Maduro regime. It is critical that these voices, so clearly and courageously articulated through the ballot box, are honored, and that the democratic process in Venezuela is fully restored.”

German court partially rejects electoral reform in win for small parties

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• Top court blocks change that would disadvantage smaller parties
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Renewed rioting sweeps British cities in wake of child murders

Violent disorder swept across several British cities on Saturday, injuring police and damaging property in the most widespread rioting in the country for 13 years, following the murder of three young girls in northwest England.