These include such practices as
popular election of electors by the voters; joint tickets for presidential and vice presidential candidates—the voter casts a single ballot for both candidates; the predominance of the general ticket, or winner-take-all, system or method, which awards all of a state's electoral votes to the ticket that wins the most popular votes statewide; a range of differing nomination procedures for elector candidates in the states; and, an enduring tradition that electors are expected, but not constitutionally required, to vote for the candidates to whom they are pledged. The electoral college has almost always been the subject of some criticism, however. Proceeding from the lengthy convention debate on choosing the chief executive, they contrived a mode of election designed to 
be free of undue influence by Congress, thus ensuring greater independence in the executive and separation of powers; provide a fundamental role for the states by establishing the election as a federal, as well as a national, process; allocate electors by a formula that provided a certain degree of advantage to less populous states, to avoid complete domination of the election process by the more populous ones; give the state legislatures broad authority over the choice of electors: at the legislatures' discretion, electors could be picked by popular vote, by the legislature itself, or by another body altogether; and, ultimately temper popular enthusiasms and partisan and sectional attachments by giving the actual vote to the electors, who, it was hoped, would be prominent citizens of their states and communities—well-informed and educated persons who would make a balanced and measured selection. The Electoral College in Function: How It Works in Contemporary Presidential Elections

The assorted components of the electoral college system come into operation before, during, and after presidential election day, once every four years. This is referred to as the "general ticket" or "winner-take-all" system or method. It has elected the candidates who received the most popular votes in 49 of those elections. Constitutional Issues

Some of the electoral college system's asserted failings are attributed by its critics to its structure and provisions as established in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution and the Twelfth Amendment. The Minority President: An Electoral College "Misfire"

Perhaps the most widely cited structural criticism of the electoral college system is that it can lead to the election of Presidents and Vice Presidents who win a majority of the electoral vote, but who have gained fewer popular votes nationwide than their major opponents. In the presidential election of 2016, however, three would-be faithless electors were prevented from voting for candidates other than those to whom they were pledged. These various biases have been debated over the years. The "Electoral College Lock"

A final asserted bias considered in this report is the so-called "electoral college lock," a perceived phenomenon identified in the late 1960s that was claimed to provide a long-term election advantage to the candidates of a particular party, originally to Republicans, and later, Democrats, at least through the 2016 election. Mend It? Leave It Alone? The "people's choice" would always be elected. They would
eliminate the office of presidential elector while retaining electoral votes; award electoral votes directly to the candidates, without the action of electors; and retain the requirement that a majority of electoral votes is necessary to win the presidency. The three most popular reform proposals include
the automatic plan or system, which would mandate the assignment of electoral votes automatically on the current general ticket/winner-take-all basis in each state and the District of Columbia; the district plan or system, as currently adopted in Maine and Nebraska, which would automatically award one electoral vote to the winning ticket in each congressional district in each state, but would also automatically assign each state's two additional "senatorial" electoral votes to the statewide popular vote winners; and the proportional plan or system, which would automatically award each state's electoral votes in proportion to the percentage of the popular vote gained by each ticket. Further, they maintain the electoral college system promotes political stability. Both resolutions have been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary and to its Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice. For additional information and analysis of current electoral college reform or replacement proposals, see CRS Report R44928, The Electoral College: Reform Proposals in the 114th and 115th Congress , by [author name scrubbed]. First, proposed amendments introduced in the past decade all embraced the "end it" option, substituting direct popular election for the electoral college; no proposal to reform the electoral college has been introduced since the 107 th Congress (2001-2003). None of these proposals has been successful to date. NPV is a nongovernmental initiative which seeks to establish direct popular election of the President and Vice President through an interstate compact, rather than by constitutional amendment. NPV relies on the Constitution's broad grant (in Article II, Section 1, clause 1) of power to each state to "appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct [emphasis added], a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress." The compact, however, would take effect only if states controlling a majority of the electoral college, 270 or more votes, were to approve the plan. Between 2007 and 2014, 10 states and the District of Columbia joined the compact. Since that time, amendments have been introduced to reform or replace the electoral college with direct popular election in almost every session of Congress.
The electoral college method of electing the President and Vice President was established in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution and revised by the Twelfth Amendment. It provides for election of the President and Vice President by electors, commonly referred to as the electoral college. A majority of 270 of the 538 electoral votes is necessary to win. For further information on the modern-day operation of the college system, see CRS Report RL32611, The Electoral College: How It Works in Contemporary Presidential Elections, by [author name scrubbed].
The electoral college has been the subject of criticism and proposals for reform since before 1800. Constitutional and structural criticisms have centered on several of its features: (1) although today all electors are chosen by the voters in the presidential election, it is claimed to be not fully democratic, since it provides indirect election of the President; (2) it can lead to the election of candidates who win the electoral college but fewer popular votes than their opponents, or to contingent election in Congress if no candidate wins an electoral college majority; (3) it results in electoral vote under- and over-representation for some states between censuses; and (4) "faithless" electors can vote for candidates other than those they were elected to support. Legislative and political criticisms include (1) the general ticket system, currently used in all states except Maine and Nebraska, which is alleged to disenfranchise voters who prefer the losing candidates in the states; (2) various asserted "biases" that are alleged to favor different states and groups; and (3) the electoral college "lock," which has been claimed to provide an electoral college advantage to both major parties at different times.
In its defense, electoral college supporters claim that it is a fundamental component of federalism, that it has elected "the people's choice" in over 90% of presidential elections, and that it has promoted political stability and a broad-based, enduring, and generally moderate political party system.
Changing the electoral college system presents several options, sometimes characterized as: "end it," "mend it," or "leave it alone." Proposals to end the electoral college almost always recommend direct popular election, under which the candidates winning the most popular votes nationwide would be elected. In support of direct popular election, its advocates refer to the elections of 2000 and 2016, so-called electoral college "misfires," in which candidates were elected with an electoral college majority, but fewer popular votes than their principal opponents.
Almost all reform proposals—"mend it"—would keep electoral votes, but eliminate electors, thus ending the faithless elector phenomenon. They would then award the electoral votes directly by one of several methods: the general ticket system on a nationwide basis; the district system that awards electoral votes on a congressional district- and statewide-vote basis; or the proportional system that awards state electoral votes in proportion to the percentage of popular votes gained by each candidate. Despite more than 30 years of legislative activity from the 1940s through the late 1970s, proposed constitutional amendments did not win the approval of two-thirds of Members of both houses of Congress required by the Constitution for referral to the states.
Since 2004, some of the reforms identified above have been attempted in the states. District plan initiatives have been offered in California, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Proportional plans have been proposed in Colorado and Pennsylvania. Nebraska has considered returning to the general ticket system. None of these, however, has been enacted to date.
A nongovernmental organization is currently promoting the National Popular Vote (NPV) initiative, an interstate compact that would effectively achieve direct popular election without a constitutional amendment. It relies on the Constitution's broad grant of authority to the states in Article II, Section 1, to appoint presidential electors "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.... " States that join the compact pledge to award their electoral votes to the nationwide popular vote winners, regardless of who wins in their particular states. The compact would come into effect only after states controlling a majority of electoral votes (270 or more) were to join it. At the time of this writing, 10 states and the District of Columbia, which jointly control 165 electoral votes, have joined the NPV compact.
Since the 2016 presidential election, several amendments to eliminate the electoral college system and establish direct popular election have been introduced in the 114th and 115th Congress. For additional information on contemporary reform efforts, see CRS Report R44928, The Electoral College: Reform Proposals in the 114th and 115th Congress.