As we get ready for the season finale of this presidential election cycle, what happens after the polls close Tuesday night is anyone’s guess. But what we know for sure is that the countdown to whether Vice President Kamala Harris or Trump becomes our 47th president all hinges on the Electoral College. 

It’s that slow burn to the critical number 270, which is nearly half of the 538 electors who pick the president, that can at times be confusing and seem anti-democratic. It’s also the supporting cast of the seven battleground states that will ultimately decide whether Harris will make history again or Trump will head back to the White House. Although Black voters are an important voting bloc, they alone won’t determine who wins. 

It comes down to how your state votes and how those votes are then cast for a presidential candidate. If you’re still wondering, “does the will of the people (the popular vote) really matter?” read on for a refresher on the Electoral College.

What is it anyway?

The Electoral College is a group of people who are chosen by each state’s political parties and are the ones who cast the votes for the president after we cast our ballots on Nov. 5. A state’s number of electors is equal to its two Senate seats and the number of seats it has in the House of Representatives. For example, Virginia, has 11 seats in the House of Representatives. So, with its two Senate seats, it has 13 Electoral College votes.

I’m a Black voter in Georgia and my cousin lives in Texas. Does our vote really even count?

Alexsis Rodgers, political director at the Black to the Future Action Fund, said that Black voters may still feel tired and like nobody is taking care of us, but it shouldn’t stop them from voting. “It’s important that we still make our voice heard on and after Election Day, that we are holding those people accountable for delivering that.”

For instance, Rodgers notes that there’s a lot more on your ballot than the president in some states. In Virginia, where Rodgers lives, there’s a constitutional amendment that could change the way residents have access to health care. There are all kinds of down-ballot races and ballot initiatives depending on what state you live in. 

This 2024 election will be decided by the swing states of Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, and Wisconsin. The ballots in each of these states have varying weight toward Electoral College votes, but Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina have an above-average share of Black residents. Still, whether you’re in California, in New York, North Carolina, or Texas, you’re needed, Rodgers added.

The Electoral College doesn’t seem fair at all, but does it really have racist origins?  

Well, it depends on whom you ask. After all, it was created more than two centuries ago to empower Southern white voters who enslaved Black people.

“So instead of it being one person, one vote in the South, where they had a lot of enslaved Africans, they didn’t count those people towards their vote. Instead, they gave them electoral votes,” Rodgers said. “That means that for each member of Congress, you got one elector, and for each of your senators, you got an elector. It was a way to kind of balance out the population between the North and the South.”

Some critics have also long debated over whether the uniquely American certification process  subverts the will of the people and has racist roots. 

Legal scholar Wilfred U. Codrington III, summed it up best in 2020: 

The populations in the North and South were approximately equal, but roughly one-third of those living in the South were held in bondage. Because of its considerable, nonvoting slave population, that region would have less clout under a popular-vote system. The ultimate solution was an indirect method of choosing the president, one that could leverage the three-fifths compromise, the Faustian bargain they’d already made to determine how congressional seats would be apportioned. With about 93 percent of the country’s slaves toiling in just five southern states, that region was the undoubted beneficiary of the compromise, increasing the size of the South’s congressional delegation by 42 percent. When the time came to agree on a system for choosing the president, it was all too easy for the delegates to resort to the three-fifths compromise as the foundation. The peculiar system that emerged was the Electoral College.

Democrats have also argued that it favors Republicans by amplifying small states’ power.

“I think part of what we are seeing right now is a way to continue to suppress our vote. Either way, we’re paying attention to how our districts are being drawn and making sure that Black people are part of that process, that our power is not being diluted.”

Is the electoral college a divisive issue?

In recent years, there’s been growing talk to abolish the Electoral College. According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, more than 60% of all Americans believe that the president should be elected by a national popular vote as opposed to the Electoral College. But that support split along a partisan divide: 80% of Democratic voters support switching to a popular vote system, compared to just 46% of Republicans. Yet in recent years, more Republicans responded that they wanted to switch to a popular vote now than they did in 2016. The number of Republican voters who support reform increased by some 19 percentage points over the past 8 years, Pew found.

I already voted. What happens next? 

If a projected winner is announced late Tuesday or days from now, for weeks it will likely be considered unofficial. Tallies will get confirmed and overseas and provisional ballots will be added in.  On Dec. 11, electors will be appointed by a state executive, which is usually the governor. On Dec. 17, the appointed presidential electors (the Electoral College) in each state will meet. The electoral certificates of each state are due by the fourth Wednesday in December, which falls on Christmas (Dec. 25) this year. On Jan. 3, 2025, the new Congress will be sworn in. And drumroll, please. Ever wonder why Jan. 6 was the day insurrectionists targeted members of Congress at the Capitol? On Jan. 6, 2025, members of Congress will convene to count the electoral votes.

This story has been updated.