Electoral votesin the U.S. Electoral College determine the President and VicePresident of the United States. Every state and the District ofColumbia are awarded a certain number of electoral votes with whichto elect the President. Each state has electoral votes equal to thetotal of the 2 representative the state has in the U.S. Senate plusthe number of representative the state has in the House ofRepresentatives. Since every state has two senators and at leastone representative to the House, every state has at least 3electoral votes. The District of Columbia gets 3 electoral votes.Therefore, the total number of electoral votes is 538 - 100(senators) + 435 (representatives) + 3 (for DC). A majority is 270- one more than half of the total number of 538.The electors ineach state are elected in the presidential election and swear inadvance to vote for the presidential candidate who wins theelection in their state. Electors meet in their respective statecapitals (electors for the District of Columbia meet within theDistrict) on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December, atwhich time they cast their electoral votes on separate ballots forpresident and vice-president. Each state then forwards the electionresults to the President of the U.S. Senate, the Archivist of theUnited States, the state's Secretary of State, and the chief judgeof the United States district court where those electors met. Ajoint session of Congress takes place on January 6 in the calendaryear immediately following the meetings of the presidentialelectors. The electoral votes are officially tabulated at the jointsession of Congress and the winner of the election is officiallydeclared.