The Electoral College explained

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You might be surprised to know that in the US, Citizens do not elect the President by direct vote.   Instead we have something called the Electoral College.  It's a little confusing even for Americans.  Hopefully, I can explain it in simple terms.  When we vote in the United States we are not voting for the President directly instead we are picking a group of people called electors to vote for us.    

Together, all of the electors are called the Electoral College.  In this case, a college is not a place like a university but a word that means a group of people assembled together for a specific purpose.   Other similar words are an assembly, an association, or a congress.  

Each state has a set number of electors and when each state election is finished the candidate with the most votes wins all of the electors from that state.  So, for example Florida has 27 electoral votes.  If candidate A wins 55% of the popular vote (that's the votes from the people) and candidate B wins 45% of the vote then all 27 electoral votes go to candidate A.   

Each state has a different number of electors.  Here's the formula
electors = # of Representatives in the House of Representatives + 2 Senators

So, when you are watching the election results on TV you will see the number of electoral votes being calculated.  The news person will say this state goes to Candidate A or this state goes to Candidate B.   Usually they will have a giant map of the United States and they will change the color of the state to match the winner.   Red for Republicans and Blue for Democrats.  Now these colors are generally accepted but they are informal designations that have changed over time so be sure to check the map labels of the show or website you are watching.

But the important thing to notice is the number of electoral votes.  When one candidate has 270 of the total 538 Electoral votes then they win the Presidency.

Thanks for listening.  This has been Cassie Brenn for fastfoodenglish.blogspot.com.