The Brief

Every presidential election cycle, constitutional law expert Alison LaCroix can count on people asking her one question when they learn what she does for a living.

“Why do we have the Electoral College?” she says she's asked — again and again. “It's good news in terms of people being aware that it exists,” says LaCroix, who teaches law and history at the University of Chicago, “but bad news in the sense that people feel like, ‘Why does it exist, and is it useful?’”

A majority of Americans — more than 60% — support abolishing the Electoral College, according to a September report by the Pew Research Center. But the system has survived an unprecedented number of attempts to change it.

“There have been more proposals for Constitutional amendments on changing the Electoral College than on any other subject,” according to the National Archives, citing more than 700 efforts to dismantle the process.

Backers of the Electoral College idea say the system balances power among large and small states, brings stability, and is an obstacle to demagogues. But critics call the Electoral College an indirect process that’s undemocratic and rooted in racism. It’s also the reason we have swing states.

“From the perspective of 2024, you know, it doesn't seem ‘small-d’ democratic to have this sort of intermediate body between the people voting and the ultimate decision,” says LaCroix, who has written a historical analysis of the U.S. Constitution.

Here’s a quick guide:

How does the Electoral College work?

Dec. 16, 1940: New York State electors, part of the Electoral College, cast votes at the state capital in Albany. "All are unidentified," according to The Associated Press.

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“When voters cast their ballots for a candidate for president of the United States, they are actually voting for the presidential electors who were selected by that candidate’s party,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

On ballots around the country, names like “Donald Trump” and “Kamala Harris” actually represent slates of electors — members of the Electoral College who are pledged to vote for that candidate.

There are 538 members of the Electoral College nationwide: one for each state’s members of Congress, and three more for the District of Columbia. That’s where the presidential election’s famous number comes from: The candidate with at least 270 electoral votes (a majority) wins. As we’ve seen in some previous elections, that candidate doesn’t have to win the popular vote.

Despite its substantial-sounding name, the Electoral College is neither a place nor a permanent body: It’s more of a process. In each state, political parties designate their own slate of potential electors before the November general election.

Nearly every state and the District of Columbia have a winner-take-all policy, meaning only those electors tied to a candidate who won the popular vote in their state will send their ballots to the Capitol. Maine and Nebraska divide the ballots, giving two “at-large” electoral votes to the state’s overall winner but also one for each congressional district won.

The electors then gather in mid-December to cast their votes for president and vice president, sending the results to Congress.

Congress then certifies the votes, on Jan. 6. If there’s a tie, the House of Representatives would hold a contingent election to choose the president.

A presidential candidate can win the Electoral College vote but lose the popular vote: it happened in 2016 and 2000, and several times in the 1800s.

Who are the electors?

In most states, the two main parties choose slates of potential electors either at their conventions or by committee votes. They’re often people who play prominent roles in state government or are longstanding party members.

Each state’s legislature determines how electors are chosen — but there are two main restrictions: They can’t be federal government workers; and they can’t be members of Congress.

Federal law doesn’t require electors to vote in a way that reflects that results in their state, but 37 states have laws requiring them to do so, according to the NCSL. The organization says the 2016 election saw seven “faithless” electors — including five Democratic electors who refused to cast their votes for Hillary Clinton — the most since 1972.

Despite their power, electors’ identities aren’t usually widely known outside of their state. Unlike members of Congress, there isn’t a centralized list of all the states’ electors, according to the Office of the Federal Register.

The Framers opted against a popular vote

Jan. 6, 2021: Then-President Trump's supporters march at the Michigan State Capitol to protest the certification of Joe Biden as the next U.S. president.

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The country’s framers saw the Electoral College as a way to balance a lot of competing motivations, from the separation of federal powers to states not wanting to cede power, to concerns of unequal power between the states due to population differences (and for some, not wanting to risk losing slavery). LaCroix says even at the time, in the 1780s when this decision was made at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the delegates chose “an unusual body.”

The Constitution’s framers were also dubious about a popular vote, concerned on one hand that the country was too large for the public to make an informed choice on a leader — and on the other, that a direct system could help a demagogue rise to power.

They also considered, but dismissed, the idea of having Congress choose the president, similar to Great Britain’s parliamentary system. But at the Convention, Gouverneur Morris — who argued for a popular vote — warned that if the legislature picked the president, “it will be the work of intrigue, of cabal, and of faction.”

But some Convention attendees also believed candidates would likely fail to gain national support outside their region, leaving Congress to decide the presidency.

“And then they say, well, what about an intermediate body, which becomes the Electoral College,” LaCroix says. “[It] solves the problem of the president being too beholden to Congress. It's a temporary body. It's not some entity that has ongoing power. And they thought that was appealing.”

A further sign of the Electoral College’s ephemeral nature: The term isn’t mentioned in the Constitution.

Why do some call the Electoral College a relic of racism?

Dec. 13, 2000: Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore march to the Florida State Capitol to rally against the legislature's intention to name a slate of electors favorable to Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.

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At the Convention, Southern states successfully argued for using enslaved people’s population numbers to bolster their power in Congress, claiming that each slave should be counted as 3/5 of a person — but not have the right to vote — when calculating representation.

A direct popular vote for the presidency would undermine that power. But if the Electoral College were to be based on representation in Congress, the Three Fifths Compromise’s amplification of Southern political power would carry over into choosing the president. The dynamic has been a force in presidential elections ever since.

“That's a problem with the Electoral College today, is it just sort of refracts too much power to small states,” LaCroix says. “And some of it is about smaller states — or states that were, like Georgia and South Carolina, really concerned about protecting slavery” in the new Constitution.

The Civil War and the 13th Amendment ended the Three Fifths era. But for decades afterward, Southern states worked to suppress and dilute Black voters’ impact. Today, the Electoral College’s critics say that its winner-take-all aspect is still harmful.

“You see the impact, for example, in the South right now,” Jesse Wegman, author of the book Let The People Pick The President: The Case For Abolishing The Electoral College, told NPR’s Fresh Air in 2020. Wegman says millions of Black citizens’ votes in Southern states are simply drowned out by white majorities.

“You see these patterns replicating themselves throughout our history,” he said. “The people who stopped the popular vote amendment in the late 1960s were Southern segregationists. Some of the people who prevented us from getting to a popular vote in the founding of the country were slave holders. Again and again the pattern repeats itself.”

The House overwhelmingly voted to abolish the Electoral College in 1969

Nov. 13, 2016: Protestors demonstrate against President-elect Donald Trump outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The Republican lost the popular vote by more than a million votes, but he won the Electoral College vote.

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Going back more than 50 years, a majority of voters have supported doing away with the Electoral College.

“Public opinion polls have shown Americans favored abolishing it by majorities of 58 percent in 1967; 81 percent in 1968; and 75 percent in 1981,” according to the National Archives.

Momentum to replace the Electoral College got a boost in 1968, when Richard Nixon notched a razor-thin win of the popular vote — after earlier concerns that segregationist George Wallace’s third-party candidacy might siphon enough electoral votes to prevent a clear majority.

Sen. Birch Bayh led a push to amend the Constitution, and in September of 1969, the House voted 339–70 to adopt the measure. But the amendment languished in the Senate.

“Led by Southern senators but helped by some very conservative Midwestern Republicans, the proposal is defeated by a filibuster,” as Harvard Kennedy School professor Alex Keyssar told NPR’s Throughline ahead of the 2020 election.

Segregationists weren’t the only ones who wanted to preserve the Electoral College. Some Black leaders, such as Vernon Jordan, argued in the 1970s that Black voters could wield political power as “swing” election deciders. But many of those leaders later opted to support a popular vote.

There’s an ongoing debate over whether to replace the Electoral College

The college’s supporters include the conservative Heritage Foundation, which says it prevents presidential candidates from focusing only on winning votes from high-population and urban areas, thus addressing “the Founders’ fears of a ‘tyranny of the majority,” according to its website.

The Heritage Foundation also says the Electoral College tends to magnify the margin of victory, imparting a mandate to govern; and “has the added benefit of eschewing radical candidates for more moderate ones.”

Even experts who want change also warn that some of the impacts could be unpredictable.

For instance, Akhil Reed Amar, a law professor at Yale University, told NPR’s Throughline that running a new, national direct election would bring complications — from what central federal authority oversees it to how to get 50 states to agree on the rules.

But, Amar added, “Here's my best argument for why we should have reform: equality. One person, one vote. Each person's vote should count the same…. One person, one vote is a powerful affirmation of equality.”

In the face of high federal hurdles such as a constitutional amendment, there is a push for change at the state level.

Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states adopt legislation requiring them to award their electors’ votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the popular vote nationwide. The mechanism would kick in once enough states join the compact to decide a presidential election.

As of this year, National Popular Vote legislation has become law in 17 states and D.C., reflecting 209 electoral votes. In 2023, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed his state’s version of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This year, Maine also joined the group.

The legislation “has also passed at least one legislative chamber in 7 states possessing 74 electoral votes (Arkansas, Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Oklahoma, Virginia),” according to the National Popular Vote website.

The compact needs to add states holding 61 more electoral votes to trigger the change.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman is blaming Boeing and his own agency for botching a test flight of the Starliner spacecraft, designed to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

A 311-page report details the issues that led to the failure of Starliner's first crewed test flight, which in June 2024 launched NASA astronauts Butch Willmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral Space Force station in Florida.

The duo's launch was initially a success — but as their Starliner spacecraft approached the station, multiple thrusters failed, hampering the crew's ability to steer toward the station and dock.

After months of deliberation, NASA and Boeing made the decision to send Starliner back to Earth without Wilmore and Williams on board. Instead, the astronauts remained on the space station and returned home 9 months later — in SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule.

In a news conference Thursday, Isaacman said the report classified the failure as a Type A Mishap — the highest classification for a mission failure. The Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia accidents, along with the Apollo 1 fire, were also classified as a Type A Mishap. While those accidents resulted in the deaths of crewmembers, the Starliner mission was "ultimately successful in preserving crew safety," according to the report.

The report identifies the thrusters as a key technical issue leading to the failure, although an investigation is still ongoing and a root cause has not yet been found.

"Starliner has design and engineering deficiencies that must be corrected," said Isaacman. "But the most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware. It's decision making and leadership that, if left unchecked, could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight."

He said those organizational and leadership problems were seen at both Boeing and NASA, Isaacman's own agency.

The report identified an erosion of trust between the two organizations and leadership that was "overly risk-tolerant."

Isaacman said that the more than 30 launch attempts for this mission led to "cumulative schedule pressure and decision fatigue." When discussing whether to return Wilmore and WIlliams in Starliner, Isaacman said the "disagreements over crew return options deteriorated into unprofessional conduct while the crew remained on orbit."

Isaacman said there would be "leadership accountability," but didn't offer any details.

"These are very complex programs, and complex programs like this fail in complex ways," said Don Platt, department head of aerospace engineering, physics and space science at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida. "Those organizational issues are oftentimes, maybe even more important than the technical problems that they're facing."

Such a public scolding of NASA and one of its contractors by its own leader is uncommon, says Platt, who worked on the construction of the space station.

"I think it's really setting the stage for sort of the new way that NASA plans to do business here in his administration," says Platt.

He says that could mean greater transparency and oversight over NASA's contractors

Despite NASA's plans to decommission the space station by the end of the decade, Isaacman says he is still committed to flying Starliner. That would leave NASA with two options, Boeing and SpaceX, to fly astronauts to the station — something SpaceX already does with regularity.

The report offered 61 formal recommendations ahead of the next crewed Starliner mission.

"We're grateful to NASA for its thorough investigation and the opportunity to contribute to it," Boeing said in an emailed statement. "We're working closely with NASA to ensure readiness for future Starliner missions and remain committed to NASA's vision for two commercial crew providers."

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The Long Beach Unified Board of Trustees on Wednesday authorized the school district to end the employment of close to 600 employees, a move the LBUSD says is necessary to stabilize its ballooning deficit.

Board members approved two separate resolutions, the first of which does not renew the contracts of 515 certificated employees, who are on temporary contracts that must be re-upped annually. Though it is common for the district to choose not to renew some temporary contracts, the non-renewal of hundreds of TK-12 teachers, early childhood education teachers and social workers represents a massive change for the next school year from the current workforce of 10,000 total employees. While schools across the district will feel the cuts, Poly and Jordan high schools may be especially hard hit; 14 and 12 teachers at each site are listed on the district’s document of non-renewals.

The second resolution authorized the district to formally lay off 54 classified district positions: non-teaching staff members ranging from office support staff to instructional and recreation aides to library media assistants to parent liaisons.

The board votes come after months of warnings from the district that costs and spending have outpaced the district’s funding, saddling LBUSD with a $70 million deficit. The district is now attempting to shrink that deficit through a fiscal stabilization plan that “has prioritized preserving core instructional, wellness, and student support services,” the district wrote in an agenda item related to the cuts.

Prior to the vote, Superintendent Jill Baker framed the proposed cuts with the historical context of significant enrollment declines, the expiration of funds following the Great Recession and COVID-19 pandemic that had allowed the district to develop a healthy reserve, uncertain federal and state dollars and low attendance numbers, for which the district is penalized — “a really grave situation, fiscally,” she said, one that many districts across California are grappling with.

Baker walked board members through the significant efforts the district has made to manage costs, saving more than $47 million, including through significant central office reductions. Despite these efforts, it’s still not enough, Baker said.

“The release of temporary certificated contracts is one way of reducing the number of employees without impacting permanent certificated employees,” the district wrote in the agenda item.

For those 515 certificated employees who will be notified that their contracts will end, it’s a way that “the district can get away with letting teachers go without calling it a layoff,” said Peder Larsen, vice president of the Teachers Association of Long Beach, which represents certificated employees in LBUSD.

Some of them could be rehired, especially if their positions are in high demand, like science, math and special education teachers, Larsen said. Yet, it throws hundreds into a tailspin of uncertainty and fear, unsure if their jobs have definitively ended and how long they will have health coverage, he added.

While he said the district has not officially announced that no permanent certificated employees will be cut (they have until March 15 to do so), he said he is “reading the tea leaves” and predicting those permanent positions will be safe this year.

In his comment to the board during public testimony, Larsen advocated for examining the money spent annually on consultants and contracts and urged the board and district to re-examine their priorities and “choose to protect the people who serve students every single day.”

On both votes, School Board Member Maria Isabel López was the lone vote against the resolutions, voicing her opinion that some of these positions could have been saved if fiscal priorities had been different and major contracts had not been approved.

Other board members acknowledged that the votes will change lives. “There’s not one of us in this room that takes this lightly,” said Board President Diana Craighead before voting in favor of the cuts. Board Member Doug Otto said he was voting to adopt the resolutions “sadly, reluctantly and necessarily.”