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Electoral votes in the Electoral College determine the President of the United States. Every state and DC 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. The states choose as many electors as it has electoral votes and these electors elect the president. The electors are elected by popular vote in each state and each candidate for elector swears in advance whom he will vote for. 270 electoral votes in the Electoral College are needed to win the U.S. presidency. 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 in the Electoral College is 538 - 100 (senators) + 435 (representatives) + 3 (for DC). A majority is 270 - one more than half of the total number of 538.

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