What is the Electoral College?

Answer 1

An electoral college is a group of people who formally elect the president of the USA. Their vote happens after the popular vote. There are 538 electors. An elector is chosen by the party and cannot be a senator or representative. Depending on the election rules in the state, the elector's name may or may not be on the ballot below the presidential candidate.

In November of the election year eligible American citizens can vote. This includes Americans that live abroad and Americans who have Dual Citizenship. The votes are tallied up by state. Which ever party wins that state gets all the electors in that state, except for Maine and Nebraska who split the votes.

In December each states' electors meet in their states capitol and vote for president and vice president. A candidate needs at least 270 votes to have majority.

In theory, the electoral college could switch candidates if enough electors switched sides. As the 2000 and 2016 elections have showed, the popular vote does not decide who receives the majority of electors. In the 2000 election Al Gore had over 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush and in 2016 Hillary Clinton had 800,000 more votes than Donald Trump.
Electoral votes in the U.S. Electoral College determine the President and Vice President of the United States.

Electoral votes in the U.S. Electoral College determine the President and Vice President of the United States. Every state and the District of Columbia are awarded a certain number of electoral votes with which to elect the President. Each state has electoral votes equal to the total of the 2 representative the state has in the U.S. Senate plus the number of representative the state has in the House of Representatives. Since every state has two senators and at least one representative to the House, every state has at least 3 electoral votes. The District of Columbia gets 3 electoral votes. Therefore, the total number of electoral votes is 538 - 100 (senators) + 435 (representatives) + 3 (for DC). A majority is 270 - one more than half of the total number of 538.

Answer 2

The official definition for the term electoral college is "(in the US) a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president."