User:Gryffindor conservative/sandbox

The Electoral College is the system the United_States uses to elect its President_of_the_United_States and Vice_President_of_the_United_States, as enshrined in the Constitution_of_the_United_States. This Electoral College consists of 538 electors, who are distributed among the 50 states based on their representation in the United_States_Congress (number of representatives (435) and senators (100)). Additionally, the District of Columbia has 3 electoral votes it has been given since the passage of the Twenty-third_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution, allowing them to vote in presidential elections. In order for a candidate to win the electoral college, he or she must win a majority of the 538 electoral votes (270). This is done by winning the popular vote in certain states in order to capture their electoral votes. In all states but Nebraska and Maine, the presidential candidate who wins a plurality of the vote in a state wins all of that states electoral votes. However, Nebraska and Maine award their electoral votes based on congressional district, as well as whoever wins the most votes in their state. While the November election determines the identity of the electors who are intended to vote in accordance with how the state voted, the actual election of the president occurs in December, where the electors in their states vote for the next president of the United States. While electors are supposed to vote for how the state's popular vote went, there is no federal law that requires a state's electors to vote for how the state's popular vote voted. In fact, only twenty-nine states plus the District of Columbia penalize faithless electors (ie electors who disregard the state's popular vote). The Electoral College has been a topic of serious debate over many decades, with many regarding it as not representing the will of the people, as a presidential candidate does not have to win the popular vote to become president, which happened in the 2000_United_States_presidential_election and 2016_United_States_presidential_election. However, others argue that the Electoral College protects small states by giving them larger representation than they would otherwise have in a direct popular vote system. They also contend that the Electoral College makes it so candidates cannot only campaign in big cities, and have to be accountable to the entire nation's demographics. Opponents, however, proclaim that through the Electoral College system, candidates only need to campaign in Swing_state, where they can win a large number of electoral votes through a relatively small minority of voters who can swing a presidential election.