The Electoral College Is Meeting on Monday. Here’s What to Expect.

From: The New York Times, "First Draft on Politics," Monday, December 19, 2016 (sent by email)

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On Monday, 538 people will meet to determine who will be the next president.

These meetings of the Electoral College, convened in every state and in the District of Columbia just shy of six weeks after Election Day, have long been little more than a formality.

But the victory of Donald J. Trump, who lost the popular vote but is projected to win the most electoral votes, has thrust the Electoral College into the spotlight once more.

President Obama on Friday described the Electoral College — originally a compromise between those who wanted Congress to choose the president and those who favored a popular vote — as a “vestige.” Here is a rundown of what comes next.

Who are the electors?

In short, the electors are people chosen by their state political parties to cast votes for president and vice president. Electors can be state party leaders or elected officials; sometimes they are individuals with a personal connection to a presidential candidate. Bill Clinton, for instance, is a New York elector this year.

The number of electors each state has is equal to its number of representatives and senators in Congress; there are 538 in total, including three from the District of Columbia.

What happens on Monday?

Electors will meet in their states, typically at the capitol, where they will cast two votes: one for president and one for vice president.

They will then prepare what is called a “certificate of vote” with the results, which is mailed or delivered via courier to the National Archives, where it becomes part of the nation’s official records, and to Congress.

Do electors have to vote according to popular vote results in their states?

Not necessarily. At least one elector has said he will buck his party and not vote for Mr. Trump. Nothing in the Constitution, or in federal law, binds electors to vote a particular way. There are some state laws that bind them to choose according to the popular vote in that state; others are bound by more informal pledges to their party.

Under some state laws, so-called faithless electors who vote against their state’s results may be fined or even disqualified and replaced. No elector has been prosecuted for doing so, but then again, almost every elector has voted with his or her state’s results in the past. The Supreme Court has not weighed in on whether pledges and the related penalties are constitutional.

And that’s it?

Not quite. At that point, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., as the departing president of the Senate, will ask if there are any objections, and lawmakers can challenge either individual electoral votes or state results as a whole. If an elector has chosen to vote against state results, that is the moment lawmakers can petition to throw that vote out.

Objections must be in writing and signed by at least one member of the House and one member of the Senate. If there are any objections, the House and Senate then immediately split up to consider them and have just two hours to decide whether they support the objection or not.

Both chambers will then reconvene and share their decisions; if both the House and the Senate agree with the objection, they will throw out the votes in question. But Congress has never sustained an objection to an electoral vote.

After any and all objections have been resolved, the results are considered final. The next step is to swear in the winner on Jan. 20.

— EMMARIE HUETTEMAN