# Electoral College

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-college/4120>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 21, 1999, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-college/4120 "1999-10-21T22:28:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Arken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@Arken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arken)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 1999, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-college/4120/1 "1999-10-21T22:28:00Z")

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With an election year coming up, here’s a question I’ve always wondered about:

How do people get selected to be a part of the electoral college?

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**Author:** ![Boris\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@Boris\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boris_B)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 1999, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-college/4120/2 "1999-10-21T22:41:00Z")

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Here’s a site that will be more complete than anything you’ll get from us good people:  
[http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/proced.html](http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/proced.html)

A brief quote from the above

> [@](#):
>
> The slates of electors are generally chosen by the political parties. State laws vary on the appointment of electors.

Basically, you are best off getting detail from your state party central committees. There are 102 different processes for this (two parties times 50 state and 1 district).

This is assuming, of course, that your asking about how individuals are selected to be on the slates, not which state is elected to the college. As to which slate gets elected, the above link talks about it, but it’s pretty simple in 48 states: whichever candidate leads the pack, gets her or his whole slate elected.

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**Author:** ![Boris\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@Boris\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boris_B)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 1999, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-college/4120/3 "1999-10-21T22:43:00Z")

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There’s also gab about this from your very own Straight Dope thread.  
[http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000426.html](http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000426.html)

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**Author:** ![Boris\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@Boris\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boris_B)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 1999, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electoral-college/4120/4 "1999-10-21T22:49:00Z")

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Arg! Meant to say, “this is assuming you’re asking about who gets to be on the slates, not which **slate** gets elected to the college”.