The electoral vote allocation for each state is not based only on population, but on total representation, House and Senate, in the combined Congress. The method for selecting the President of the United States is laid out in Article II, Sec. I of the Constitution. Two amendments also deal with the Electoral College; the 12th, which fixed an embarrassing flaw in the original Constitution that had allowed Thomas Jefferson to tie in the College with his running mate Aaron Burr, and the 23rd Amendment, which gives Washington D.C. electoral votes.

The Electoral College is composed of 538 electors chosen by the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Each state receives a number of votes in the Electoral College equal to its total representation in both Houses of Congress. For example California, which has 53 representatives in the House and two in the Senate, casts 55 votes in the College. Since the passage of the 23rd Amendment, the District of Columbia also receives a number of electoral votes (currently three) equal to the number it would cast if it were a state. No other U.S. territory has any voice in the election of the president.

Every State has two Senate representatives and a number of House representatives based on population. This provides a dampening or buffer to counter any impact of excessive enthusiasm on a purely popular front, which can (as we have seen before) be subject to mass delusions, fads, and other problems of the flesh.

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