Illinois has 19 electoral votes. This is how the Electoral College works for the state

As you may remember from your civics class in school, the President of the United States is not elected by direct popular vote.

The U.S. Constitution specifies that each state receives as many electors as there are total representatives and senators in Congress, and the Founding Fathers left it up to the states to determine how they would choose their electors.

There are a total of 538 electoral votes. A total of 270 is required for a presidential candidate to win.

A winner-take-all system in Illinois

Illinois has 19 electoral votes because the state, like every other state, has two U.S. Senators and 17 U.S. Representatives.

Like all but two U.S. states, Illinois has a winner-take-all system. All of the state’s electoral votes go to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in the state.

Two states, Maine and Nebraskause a proportional system in which they award two electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote and then one to the winner of the popular vote in each congressional district.

If the Democratic candidate wins the popular vote — as in Illinois in every election since 1988 — voters select a list of electors who have committed to voting for the Democratic candidate. If the Republican candidate wins the popular vote, voters select a list of electors who voted for the Republican candidate.

On Dec. 11, Illinois and all other states will file certificates of determination listing the names of electors chosen by the winning presidential candidate and the results of votes cast for each slate of voters, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

The Electoral College will meet on December 17 to officially cast its ballots. The electoral votes will be read at a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2025.

Do Illinois voters have to follow their state’s popular vote?

Until this year, there was no law in Illinois requiring voters to vote for the presidential election that won the state’s popular vote. But that changed in July, when Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a sweeping elections bill that included such a measure.

Regardless of current law, Illinois voters have always voted for President in accordance with the state’s popular vote. There have been cases of “faithless” voters opposing the referendum – with a total of seven in the 2016 presidential campaign.