The Electoral College: How it decides the next President of the United States

DETROIT (FOX 2) – It's a system that many Americans have questioned every election year – the Electoral College.

In every presidential election in the United States, the Electoral College is crucial in deciding who will be the next President and Vice President of the United States.

How does the electoral college work?

It involves three main steps: the selection of electors, the meeting of those electors to cast their votes, and the counting of those votes by Congress.

The choice of voters

Each state, including Michigan, receives a number of electors based on the total number of its members of Congress. For Michigan, that's 15 electoral votes. Electoral votes are calculated by adding the number of U.S. House seats held by a state to the number of Senate seats. Each state has two seats in the Senate and Michigan has 13 seats in the House of Representatives, giving the state 15 votes in the Electoral College. Each state's political parties select a list of potential voters before the election. That means when voters cast their ballots on November 5th, they are actually voting on which electors will represent the state.

Meeting of voters

Once the votes are in, those voters will come together in December to officially cast their votes. In most states, including Michigan, it is a winner-take-all system, meaning the candidate who wins the popular vote in the state receives all the electoral votes.

Counting of votes

Then Congress counts and certifies those votes and officially determines the winner.

How many electoral votes are there to win?

To win the presidency, a candidate needs at least 270 of the 538 electoral votes, but sometimes unique situations can arise.

An example would be if a candidate wins the popular vote statewide but loses the Electoral College vote. This happened in 2016 when then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump 227 to 304, but won the popular vote with 65,853,514 votes for Clinton votes, to Trump's 62,984,828 votes.

What happens if there is a tie in the presidential election?

If no candidate reaches 270, the decision goes to the House of Representatives, a rare event that has only happened twice but is provided for in the Constitution as a replacement. But it's not the current House of Representatives, but the new House of Representatives, which is also part of this election cycle. That means the checks that Congress begins in January will determine who leads the country in the event of a tie.

Can the electoral college be abolished?

Changing the Electoral College would require a constitutional amendment and therefore cannot be easily amended. Whether Americans like it or not, this system is here to stay. What this means for Michigan voters is that every vote helps determine which voters cast the crucial 15 votes so that their voices are heard in the Electoral College.

Election Day is Tuesday, November 5th. To stay up to date on election news, Tap here.