At 3:00 Eastern time on Monday Dec. 15, 538 electors in state
capitols across the US cast the votes that actually elected
Barack Obama the 44th President. Obama received, unofficially,
365 electoral votes (with 270 needed to win). The exact total
will not be official — or Obama officially elected — until
Congress certifies the count of electoral votes in a joint
session on Jan. 6, 2009. The Electoral College was established
in its present form in 1804 by the Twelfth Amendment to the US
Constitution. Electors are not required to vote for the
candidate who won their state — in fact, 24 states make it a
criminal offense to vote otherwise, but no "faithless elector"
has ever been charged with a crime. "On 158 occasions, electors
have cast their votes for President or Vice President in a
manner different from that prescribed by the legislature of the
state they represented. Of those, 71 votes were changed because
the original candidate died before the elector was able to cast
a vote. Two votes were not cast at all