US Electoral College formally elects Donald Trump as President

The US Electoral College on 19 December 2016 formally elected Donald Trump as the President of the nation. Six weeks after winning the polls, the Republican Candidate Trump was able to secure the 270 votes needed to formalise his victory.

In the voting by 538 electors across the country, Trump comfortably crossed the 270 majority mark. At the end of polling, he was able to secure 304 electoral votes, while Hillary Clinton garnered 227 votes

While the result will be officially announced on 6 January 2017 in a special joint session of Congress, he will assume the office on 20 January 2017.

What is Electoral College?

• The Electoral College is a process, not a place.

• The founding fathers established it in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress (direct election) and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens (indirect election).

• The college assigns each state certain number of electors that is equal to its total number of members in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

• Under the 23rd Amendment of the Constitution, the District of Columbia is allocated 3 electors and treated like a State for purposes of the Electoral College.

• There are 50 States in the USA and the Electoral College consists of 538 electors in total.

• Though the number of members in the House of Representatives from each State varies, the number of Senators from each State is two.

• A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President.

• Each candidate running for President in a particular State has his or her own group of electors.

• The electors are generally chosen by the candidate’s political party, but state laws vary on how the electors are selected and what their responsibilities are.

• Most states have a winner-take-all system that awards all electors to the winning presidential candidate.

• However, Maine and Nebraska each have a variation of proportional representation.

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