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.

FIFA is once again raising prices for a substantial number of games in the upcoming World Cup tournament that will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico in June and July.

The price increases took place in FIFA's latest sales window that kicked off on Wednesday, with 40 out of 104 games now costing more than in the last sales window, according to an NPR examination of prices.

The hikes can be stark. The most expensive "Category 1" tickets for the final will now cost $10,990, a broad area that covers most of the lower two bowls of MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where the last game of the tournament will be held in July.

That's significantly more than the nearly $8,700 at which these tickets were priced in FIFA's previous sales window earlier this year — and much higher than the $6,370 at which they were priced when sales kicked off last year.

The increases come even after FIFA has faced heavy criticism about the record prices being charged and its adoption of dynamic pricing for the first time. A group representing European fans and consumers called FIFA's prices "exorbitant" and filed a formal complaint this month with the European Commission in a bid to get the soccer body to lower prices.

Meanwhile, a group of Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter to FIFA accusing the organization of "price gouging at the expense of the people who make the World Cup the most-watched sporting event in the world."

FIFA has not replied to NPR's queries. But previously FIFA has justified its prices citing strong demand for tickets as well as noting it's adapting its pricing to the North American market. FIFA has also repeatedly said it's a non-profit that steers the vast majority of revenue from the World Cup to grow soccer around the world.

Price increases cover a wide range of games

Most of the price increases in the initial stage of the tournament were for teams that tend to draw more fans such as Brazil, Argentina, England and Germany — as well as co-host Mexico.

Although price hikes tended to be of less than $100, they still mark a substantial escalation from the initial prices at which FIFA started selling those tickets. Some increases were quite big though. Mexico's opening game against Saudi Arabia now costs as much as $2,985, up from $2,355 in FIFA's last sales window and up from its initial price of $1,825.

Most of the knockout games also increased in price, including the one being held in Philadelphia on July 4th — and the hikes tend to get more substantial for match-ups later in the tournament.

For example, the two semi-finals of the tournament also saw hefty price hikes. The game that will be held in Dallas in July will now cost as much as $3,710, up substantially from $3,295 in the last sales window.

The current sales window will last all the way through the tournament. FIFA has not said how many tickets are left to sell, only that it will continue to drop tickets periodically, including potentially for games that appear to be sold out.
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Why now: HMC StratCap notified the city on Tuesday that it was pulling its proposal to build a data center in a local business park after months of pressure from residents and advocates who raised concerns about pollution, energy use and health risks. The parent company of the developer — DigiCo Infrastructure REIT — said that HMC sought to "work with the City to establish productive land uses" for its Saturn Street property "that are supported by the broader community." Representatives for HMC StratCap have not responded to requests for comment.

Why it matters: For people pushing back on data centers in the region, Monterey Park is shaping up as a test case for how local organizing can stop them. The developer’s decision to withdraw its application comes ahead of a June 2 special election on Measure NDC. If approved at the ballot box, Monterey Park would be the first to ban data centers by public vote. The developer, which had threatened legal action against the city for data center restrictions, now says it will not contest the proposition.

The backstory: The data center proposal had been moving through the city's planning pipeline for two years before it started showing up on the City Council's agendas and coming to the attention of residents, who were outraged the plans had not been well-publicized by the city. Hundreds of people flooded City Hall during council meetings over the last several months, demanding the city heed their concerns. In response, the council approved a temporary moratorium on data center development, put the issue on the ballot and will consider a separate ordinance banning data center development altogether.

What’s next: Members of groups like No Data Center MPK and San Gabriel Valley Progressive Action are celebrating the application's withdrawal, but say they will continue to advocate for Measure NDC and the data center ordinance, which the City Council is expected to vote on in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, organizers are joining the effort to stop a proposal to build a battery energy storage system in the City of Industry, which they see as laying the groundwork for a data center.

Go deeper: How Monterey Park residents pushed back on a data center — and changed the course

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Attorney General Pam Bondi is out from the top job at the Justice Department. Her departure comes amid simmering frustration over her leadership and her handling of the Epstein files.

In social media post, Trump called Bondi "a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year."

"Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900," Trump said. "We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future."

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is Trump's former personal attorney, will step in to serve as acting attorney general, the president said.

Bondi, a longtime Trump loyalist, is the second member of the president's Cabinet to be forced out. Her departure comes almost one month after Trump fired Kristi Noem as secretary of Homeland Security.

Bondi leaves after a tumultuous 14 months in charge that critics say damaged the Justice Department's credibility, hollowed out the career ranks and undermined the rule of law.

Under Bondi, the department jettisoned its decades-old tradition of maintaining independence from the White House, particularly in investigations and prosecutions, to insulate them from partisan politics.

Instead, she used the department's vast powers to go after the president's perceived foes. That includes the high-profile cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, which were brought after Trump publicly called on Bondi to prosecute them.

A federal judge later tossed both cases after finding the acting U.S. attorney who secured the indictments was unlawfully appointed.

Other political opponents of the president or individuals standing in the way of his agenda also have found themselves under DOJ investigation, including Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, and former Obama-era intelligence officials James Clapper and John Brennan.

Bondi also oversaw sweeping changes to the career workforce at the department. The agency fired prosecutors and FBI officials who worked on Capitol riot cases or the Trump investigations.

The elite section that prosecutes public corruption was gutted; the Civil Rights Division, which protects the Constitutional rights of all Americans, experienced a mass exodus of career attorneys who say the division is being turned into an enforcement arm of the White House.

Political firestorm over Epstein files

Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, has defended her actions. She has portrayed the firings as a necessary house cleaning of politicized career officials. She's also tried to focus on what she views as major accomplishments during her tenure: targeting drug cartels, cracking down on violent crime, and helping in immigration enforcement.

But ultimately, the department's handling of the files related to the investigations of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein played a large role in her downfall.

Early in her tenure, Bondi told Fox News that she had Epstein's client list "sitting on my desk right now to review." A few months later, the Justice Department and the FBI said there was no client list and that no additional files from the Epstein investigation would be made public.

That touched off a political firestorm and ultimately led Congress to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which forced the Justice Department to make public all of the Epstein files in its possession.

The department failed to meet the Act's 30-day deadline to release the materials, fueling frustrations on Capitol Hill, before eventually releasing millions of pages of files. Democratic and Republican lawmakers also expressed concerns about heavy redactions that were made to many of the documents.

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Long Beach has fired the contractor that operated almost all of its homeless shelters following an audit of the $69 million the city has spent on homeless services over the last five years.

The nonprofit First to Serve ran 423 of the city’s 500 shelter beds until yesterday, but after a closed-door City Council meeting last month, Long Beach cut ties and quickly swapped in the L.A.-based nonprofit People Assisting The Homeless (PATH).

Long Beach is now investigating First to Serve, according to Deputy City Attorney Nicholas Masero. It’s unclear if that investigation could result in the city pursuing criminal or civil charges. Masero said that “we’ll make that determination as the investigations progress.”

The investigation stemmed from a broader review of Long Beach’s homelessness programs launched by City Auditor Laura Doud in 2023.

The audit, Masero said, looked into documents submitted by vendors like First to Serve “seeking reimbursement or payment on contracts.”

“During our audit, we identified information that requires further review,” Doud wrote in a recent memo to the city manager. “To protect the integrity of our ongoing investigation, we cannot provide additional details regarding the matter at this time, nor can we discuss our audit in greater detail.”

What she discovered, though, was enough to compel Long Beach to cut ties with First to Serve.

By November, the city began to withhold payments and started the search for a new provider after finding enough instances of “contractual concerns that we were confident we needed to switch providers,” Masero said.

Doud has not yet released the full results of her audit, but she said contractors like First to Serve must do a better job showing they’ve performed the work they were hired to do before they’re paid, and the city needs to verify the services were actually provided before paying.

According to Homeless Services Bureau Manager Paul Duncan, Long Beach has paid First to Serve $13 to $14 million annually to operate four shelters, as well as for rapid rehousing and prevention programs.

Paul Duncan, Long Beach’s homeless services bureau manager, informed the city’s Homeless Services Advisory Committee on Wednesday, April 1, that the city had terminated contracts with its largest homeless shelter provider.

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The organization oversaw the shelter at 702 West Anaheim St., the Atlantic Farms Bridge Housing Community at 6841 Atlantic Ave., the Project Homekey site at 1725 Long Beach Blvd., and the former Luxury Inn at 5950 Long Beach Blvd.

As of Wednesday, the sites were being operated by PATH. The city plans to release bids in the next month or two to evaluate new operators for each of the four shelters, Duncan said.

In response to the audit, the city said it’s already tightening up its processes, including the launch of a new tracking system and stricter oversight standards.

There’s been no official accounting of exactly what alleged wrongdoing is being investigated. According to their agendas, the City Council met in private on March 3 to discuss the situation, and then, on March 10, approved new contracts for PATH to operate the shelters without any public discussion.

On Wednesday, Long Beach officials also appeared to try to tamp down the idea that the move to fire First to Serve was related to accusations raised last week by mayoral candidate Chris Sweeney.

In a video posted to Instagram, Sweeney toured the shelter at 5950 Long Beach Blvd. and alleged there was fraud at the nearly empty shelter, where only 12 of its 78 rooms were being used.

First to Serve’s other three shelters were 78% to 88% occupied, according to city data, though about one-third of the rooms at the 1725 Long Beach Blvd. site were under construction and are not being used.

Officials say the city and First to Serve met weekly to review inventory at each shelter, transfer existing case files, and do walkthroughs of each site to make sure everything was accounted for.

Mayor Rex Richardson, Councilmember Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, and other city officials celebrated the completion of the shelter at 5950 Long Beach Blvd. on Wednesday, Oct 29, 2025. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova. In a memo, the Long Beach health director Alison King said the decision to cut ties with First to Serve was related to the city auditor’s review of “prior administrative documentation” that “is not related to shelter operations.”

Nevertheless, she wrote, “Based on the findings of that review, the City determined it is in the best interest of the community to move forward with a new service provider for shelter operations.”

The city’s investigation has been ongoing since October, according to Masero.

Nobody from First to Serve was immediately available to answer questions late Wednesday night.