Article II Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, as modified by the 12 th Amendment, provides for an indirect election of the President and Vice President by presidential electors. Although the states are authorized to appoi nt them "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct," today, presidential electors are themselves elected by qualified voters in all the states. In order to win, candidates must win a majority of the electoral votes. Although the words do not appear in the Constitution, the electors are known collectively as the electoral college, and this arrangement is generally referred to as the electoral college system. It has proved to be a durable institution or process, due in part to the fact that the U.S. Constitution is, by design, not easily amended. Its longevity may also be due to the fact that it has delivered a chief executive who commanded a majority of electoral votes in 53 of 54 presidential contests since the 12 th Amendment took effect in 1804. Also important from the standpoint of democratic principle and majority rule is the fact that the electoral college system has elected the candidates who won the most popular votes—"the people's choice"—in 49 of these 54 elections. Despite its origins as the handiwork of the Constitution's framers, the electoral college system has been criticized as undemocratic, archaic, cumbersome, and weighted in favor of—or against—different states and groups since the first presidential elections. At the same time, electoral college defenders have asserted that it is a key foundation of federalism, it contributes to a stable and moderate political party system, and that it has delivered "the people's choice," the popular vote winner in 91% of presidential elections since 1804. Congress actively considered electoral college reform for nearly 30 years between the late 1940s and 1979, bringing multiple proposals to the floor of the Senate and House of Representatives during this period. Reform advocates, however, were never able to achieve the two-thirds vote required to propose a constitutional amendment in both houses during the same Congress. By the early 21 st century, the questions of reforming electoral college constitutional provisions or substituting direct popular election of the President and Vice President gradually disappeared from the congressional agenda. In 2016, however, for the second time in 16 years, and for the fourth time in the nation's history, a President and Vice President were elected who won a majority of electoral votes, but fewer popular votes than their principal opponents. This outcome occurred because the system requires a majority of electoral votes, rather than of popular votes, to win the presidency. This feature, which is original to the Constitution, has been the object of both criticism and proposals for change since the early days of the republic; its recurrence in 2016 contributed to renewed interest among some in replacement of the electoral college by direct popular election. Following the election, four proposals to establish direct popular election were introduced in the last weeks of the 114 th Congress, while two more have been offered to date in the 115 th Congress. This report identifies and provides an analysis of these proposals and will be updated to report on any additional developments in electoral college reform. Aside from the electoral vote majority requirement, the Constitution gave broad discretion to the states with respect to other elements of the system. Many of the additional features associated with the electoral college system are the product of federal and state laws and party actions. 1. With today's total of 538 electors, a majority of 270 is necessary to elect the President and Vice President. 2. The voters elect presidential electors in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. 3. Candidates for the office of elector are nominated by the political parties in the states using a broad range of procedures. 4. The electors are chosen on general election day, the Tuesday after the first Monday in November of presidential election years. 5. Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia award their electors on a winner-take-all basis known as the general ticket system. Maine and Nebraska award their electors on a basis of the states' congressional district and statewide popular vote winners. 6. In December, five weeks after the general election, the electoral votes are cast by the electors, who meet separately in their respective states. 7. By tradition, electors are expected, but not constitutionally required, to vote for the candidates to whom they are pledged. 8. The electoral votes are counted by Congress on January 6 of the following year, when the winners are declared. 9. If no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, then the President is elected by the House of Representatives and the Vice President by the Senate in a process known as contingent election. Critics of the electoral college have offered proposals for its reform or replacement since the early days of government under the Constitution. Constitutional and structural criticisms have centered on several of its features: critics note that it is not fully democratic, because it provides indirect election of the President. It can, they assert, result in (1) the election of candidates who win the electoral college but receive fewer popular votes than their opponents, an eventuality referred to by reform advocates as "wrong winner" or an electoral college "misfire"; and (2) contingent election in Congress if no candidate wins an electoral college majority. They further maintain that it results in electoral vote under- and over-representation in the states between censuses and House reapportionment and the reallocation of electoral votes. They also note that "faithless" electors can vote for candidates other than those to whom they are pledged. Legislative and political criticisms include the winner-take-all or general ticket system mandated in all but two states, which is said to disenfranchise voters who prefer the losing candidates in the states; various asserted "biases" that are alleged to favor different states and groups; and the electoral college "lock," a phenomenon that has been claimed to provide a nearly insuperable advantage to one or the other of the political parties at various points in time. Public opinion has consistently and historically supported reform. The Gallup Poll reported as early as 1967 that 58% of respondents supported direct election, compared with 22% who favored retaining the electoral college; Gallup's 2013 survey recorded that 63% of respondents favored an amendment providing for direct election, while 29% favored retention of the electoral college. Following the 2016 election, however, Gallup reported a shift to greater support for the electoral college system by respondents who identified themselves as "Republican" or "Lean Republican." Conversely, already high levels of support for direct popular election among respondents who identified themselves as "Democratic" or "Lean Democratic" rose to new heights in the post-2016 election Gallup Poll. Reform options have included plans to remedy perceived flaws while retaining the basic electoral college system. Nearly all reform plans of the past century would start by eliminating the office of presidential elector but continue to award electoral votes; this would remove the potential for faithless electors, a major point of criticism of the existing system. Beyond this common feature, three principal options for reform have been advocated over time: the automatic plan, which would mandate the general ticket system in all states and the District of Columbia; the district system, adopted by Maine and Nebraska, which would allocate electoral votes by congressional district and at-large; and the proportional system, which would award electoral votes in direct proportion to the percentage of votes gained by the competing candidates in each state. Moving beyond "reform" of the system, the most popular proposal since the late 20 th century has been to eliminate the electoral college system entirely and replace it with direct popular election of the President and Vice President, with either a plurality or majority of the popular vote necessary to win. Electoral college supporters and those who favor a reformed electoral college system reject the claim that it is undemocratic, noting that electors are chosen by the voters in free elections. They assert that the electoral college system is a major component of American federalism, maintaining that the Constitution prescribes a federal election of the President by which votes are tallied in each state, and in which the voters act both as citizens of the United States and members of their state communities when choosing a President. They also cite federalism in defense of the allocation of electors among the states, and deprecate the claims that various groups or political parties are advantaged under the system. Further, they maintain that the electoral college system has historically promoted broad-based and generally moderate political parties. They reject the faithless elector argument: even counting the seven votes cast against instructions in 2016, unfaithful electors have never come close to influencing the outcome of an election. Moreover, they note, most electoral college reform plans would remove even this eventuality by eliminating the office of elector and awarding electoral votes directly. On a practical level, they note that the general ticket system actually tends to magnify the winning ticket's electoral vote margin beyond the popular vote margin, which they claim brings closure to the election process and promotes the winning candidates' legitimacy. As noted previously, the electoral college system has been the subject of discussion and controversy since the first presidential elections. Reform proposals to remedy fatal defects in the original system, by which electors cast two undifferentiated votes for President, were introduced in Congress as early as 1797, and a tie vote for President in the 1800 election led to the nation's first constitutional crisis. When the crisis was resolved by contingent election in the House of Representatives, Congress acted quickly to approve a proposal to require distinct ballots by the electors for President and Vice President. This measure was ratified in 1804 as the 12 th Amendment, becoming the first, and to date the only, specific constitutional reform of the electoral college system. Since that time, amendments have been introduced to reform or replace it with direct popular election in almost every session of Congress. Estimates vary, but reform proposals number at least 752 through the 115 th Congress.