Each state has the same number of electors as in Congress, and the District of Columbia also gets electors, leading to 538 electors. Most states will give all their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the state’s popular vote.

California has 54 electoral votes, the most of any state.

More: Live California Election Results: Coachella Valley Cities, House, Senate, Proposals

Why does the Electoral College exist?

The Electoral College system is part of the U.S. Constitution and represents a compromise between whether the president should be elected by Congress or through a popular vote, USA TODAY reported.

In a podcast from Saint Louis University School of Law, adjunct professor Greg Willard said the framers of the U.S. Constitution felt that the “masses,” or male property owners, could not be trusted to choose the next president. Founder Alexander Hamilton “expressed the importance of having electors,” two legal reference librarians at the Law Library of Congress wrote in a 2012 blog post. They pointed to the Federalist Papers as an insight into the Electoral College, in which Hamilton wrote about who elections should determine what qualities these men would have.