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News

• The Biden Transition confirmed that Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms had been offered a Cabinet position but declined. They did not specify which office.

• Michael Regan, secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality, is in consideration for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, according to Bloomberg.

• CNN reported that former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg is being considered for secretary of transportation.

• New York Daily News also reported that interim New York City Transit President Sarah Feinberg and former city Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg were being vetted for the position.

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Transition in Context: How the Electoral College Works

Members of the Electoral College in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., will meet to cast each state’s electoral votes for president and vice president today. But how does this process work? Here’s a quick explainer:

The Electoral College is the process by which the states and District of Columbia elect the president of the United States. The number of each state’s electors is equal to the size of its congressional delegation. The number of electoral votes allocated to each state can change every 10 years or so when the number of U.S. House members are reapportioned after the census.

There are 538 electors in total. To win the Electoral College, a candidate must receive a majority—at least 270—electoral votes.

Presidential candidates in each state select a slate of electors that are pledged to support him or her should they win the state. These electors are typically selected by the state party through conventions or a committee vote. When a candidate wins the popular vote in a state, their slate of electors represents that state in the Electoral College. The only exceptions to this are in Maine and Nebraska, which assign two at-large electors to the statewide winner and one elector to the winner of the popular vote in each congressional district.

Each state’s electors meet separately in their respective states and cast paper ballots for president and vice president. The electors then sign and seal six certificates of the vote, as specified by federal law.

These certificates will be posted to the website of the National Archives as they are received and must be delivered by Dec. 23 to the president of the U.S. Senate, the state secretary of state (two copies), the archivist of the United States (two copies), and the judge of the U.S. district court in the district where they met. Congress will count the electoral votes in a joint session on Jan. 6 and declare a winner—subject to any objections to an individual state's electoral votes.

Want to know who the electors are in your state this election cycle? We're tracking them here.

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What We're Reading

• The Hill: Biden appointments give Newsom chance to reshape California politics
• Politico: How Biden’s team botched his Cabinet debuts
• Washington Post: Potential family conflicts arise for Joe Biden and aides as his administration drafts new ethics rules