Civics Education Team

Each presidential candidate is allowed the same number of electors corresponding to the state’s representation in Congress.  So, our candidates each get 2 electors for our 2 senators, and 10 electors for our congressional districts for a total of 12.  In comparison, candidates in Wyoming are allowed 3, those in California are allowed 54, and those in Minnesota are allowed 10.   

States do have some flexibility about how their assigned electoral votes are apportioned to candidates. Washington State is among the “winner-take-all” states in which the candidate who wins the majority popular vote statewide gets all 12 of their electors for the national count, regardless of how closely other candidates came to a win.

Ideally, the electoral college encourages candidates to engage with a broader geographic area, including small states, rather than limiting their efforts to large states with large populations. It also reduces federal influence on the outcome by giving both citizens and states a voice and avoiding the possible corruption that might follow if all presidential elections were decided by a vote in Congress. 

There has been a lot of debate about whether the electoral college is truly representative. When population is compared to number of electoral votes, it appears that each individual popular vote “carries more weight” in Wyoming (1 electoral vote is “shared” by about 194,685 people) than Washington State (1 vote is “shared” by 662,595 people.) Theoretically, this might call into question a treasured American ideal of each popular vote being equal in weight. It is also possible for a candidate to win the popular vote nationally and still lose the election which is finally decided indirectly by electoral votes not directly by popular votes.  This has happened 5 times in our history under somewhat different circumstances. The most recent example was the election in 2016.

Since 2006, a movement to refine and improve the electoral college system has suggested that change should be based on the ability of states to band together in legal compacts to address interstate issues rather than being based on change in the Constitution. States joining the compact will pledge all their electoral votes to the candidate that wins the majority of popular votes nationwide (instead of all their state electoral votes going just to the candidate that wins the popular vote in each state). Every state legislature has considered the compact, and 16 (who have a total of 205 electoral votes out of the national 538) have voted it into law.  But the compact does not take effect until enough states join to provide at least 270 electoral votes which is the threshold for a candidate to win a national election.