Arti­cle 2, Sec­tion 1 sets up the elec­toral col­lege — the process that actu­al­ly elects the pres­i­dent, not the pop­u­lar vote.  

There are 538 elec­tors in the elec­toral col­lege. Every state has a dif­fer­ent num­ber of elec­tors, equal to the state’s num­ber of sen­a­tors and rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Con­necti­cut has two sen­a­tors, like every oth­er state, and five rep­re­sen­ta­tives for sev­en elec­toral votes. Cal­i­for­nia, the most pop­u­lous state, has 54 votes, while Alas­ka, Delaware, North Dako­ta, South Dako­ta, Ver­mont, Wyoming and Wash­ing­ton, D.C. are tied for the least amount with just three elec­toral votes. 

A can­di­date needs 270 elec­toral col­lege votes to win. Because of this sys­tem, the pres­i­dent can win the pop­u­lar vote, but still not win the pres­i­den­cy. Rur­al states, though they may have less say in the pop­u­lar vote, are favored by the elec­toral col­lege. Accord­ing to the Gilder Lehrman Insti­tute of Amer­i­can His­to­ry, “the votes of even small minori­ties in a State may make the dif­fer­ence between win­ning all of that State’s elec­toral votes or none of that State’s elec­toral votes,” enhanc­ing the reach of small­er states. 

In 2016, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump won the pres­i­den­cy, but not the pop­u­lar vote. Trump received about 63 mil­lion votes and 304 elec­toral votes, while Demo­c­rat Hillary Clin­ton won about 66 mil­lion votes and 227 elec­toral votes. Clin­ton led in the big cities, but Trump won rur­al states whose elec­toral col­lege votes amount­ed to more in the end.  

There have only been four oth­er elec­tions in which the win­ner of the pop­u­lar vote didn’t become pres­i­dent. Andrew Jack­son won a plu­ral­i­ty of the pop­u­lar vote and the elec­toral col­lege vote in 1824, but not the required major­i­ty, send­ing the elec­tion to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The House vot­ed for John Adams, who sub­se­quent­ly became pres­i­dent. In 1876 Samuel Tilden won the pop­u­lar vote but failed to win the 270 votes need­ed to win the elec­toral col­lege; the elec­tion was sent to a com­mis­sion of rep­re­sen­ta­tives who elect­ed Ruther­ford B. Hayes. In 1888, Grover Cleve­land won the pop­u­lar vote but Ben­jamin Har­ri­son won the elec­toral col­lege. George W. Bush lost the pop­u­lar vote to Al Gore in 2000. The elec­toral col­lege vote came down to Flori­da, where a con­tentious recount was stopped by the Supreme Court, lead­ing to Bush’s vic­to­ry.  

Mem­bers of Con­gress were cer­ti­fy­ing the results of the 2020 elec­toral col­lege vote on Jan. 6, 2021 when Trump sup­port­ers stormed the Capi­tol to try and stop the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and over­turn the elec­tion.  

As the pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate — as estab­lished in Arti­cle 1, Sec­tion 3 — the vice pres­i­dent pre­sides over this count, lead­ing Trump to call direct­ly on Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence to change the vote. 

“And Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Con­sti­tu­tion and for the good of our coun­try,” Trump said in his Jan. 6 speech. “And if you’re not, I’m going to be very dis­ap­point­ed in you.”  

Arti­cle 1, Sec­tion 4 estab­lish­es that time, place and man­ner of elec­tions are left up to the states, though Con­gress can make laws over­rid­ing state law if nec­es­sary.  

In a Truth Social post on Aug. 30, 2025, Trump said he would sign an exec­u­tive order ban­ning mail-in bal­lots and requir­ing vot­er I.D. nation­wide. The post said that mail-in bal­lots should only be used “For Those That Are Very Ill, And The Far Away Mil­i­tary.”  

Through exec­u­tive orders, Trump only has the author­i­ty to direct the exec­u­tive branch, not states or Con­gress. In an inter­view with PBS News, Rick Hansen, a pro­fes­sor of law and polit­i­cal sci­ence at UCLA said that for the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to ban mail-in bal­lots, Con­gress would have to pass a law.  

“The Pres­i­den­t’s job is to take care that the laws passed by Con­gress are faith­ful­ly exe­cut­ed,” he said. “So, he’s got a lot of pow­ers in terms of how the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment might inter­act with states, but it’s pri­mar­i­ly states that are run­ning elec­tions. And he has no direct author­i­ty over how elec­tions are going to be con­duct­ed, whether it’s for fed­er­al elec­tions or for state and local elec­tions.” 

Despite this, Trump signed an exec­u­tive order on March 25, 2025, that in-part directs the Elec­tion Assis­tance Com­mis­sion to change the nation­al mail vot­er reg­is­tra­tion form to require doc­u­men­tary proof of cit­i­zen­ship. On Oct. 31, the D.C. Dis­trict Court ruled this uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and issued a per­ma­nent injunc­tion.  

—by Mikay­la Bun­nell, UConn Jour­nal­ism