Millions of Americans are casting their votes today in what could be the closest presidential race ever, but we won’t know the winner until the Electoral College votes are counted. It’s election day in America and the country’s countdown to electing the next president of the United States is coming to a close. Polls opened across the nation Tuesday morning giving voters the chance to voice their choice between the two candidates: Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Donald Trump. However, a key vote in determining the next president is actually cast by the Electoral College, which is a group of electors that is formed every four years. The “Electoral College” is no college at all, rather think of it as the process for picking the United States President. When voters fill in the bubble next to the name “Donald Trump” or “Kamala Harris” voters are actually voting for a group of Republican or Democratic electors. This idea was put in place by our nation’s founders in 1787. “The concept or the inspiration for the founders was to balance across the country, number one, sort of grounded in federalism, the founders wanted to ensure that states preserve their autonomy in the process of selecting the president,” 7News Political Analyst Brian Fonseca. “Two, it’s about balancing small states with small populations and large states with large populations.” The number of electors each state gets is partially based on population. California and Texas, for example; have the most electors, followed by Florida and New York. There are 538 electoral votes in total. A presidential candidate needs 270 to win. “In two of the last cases the Democratic candidate won the popular vote, but the Republican won the presidency, so this is a scenario in which not always does the popular vote and the electoral college vote sort of align,” said Fonseca. That has happened twice in recent history. First, in the year 2000, when George W. Bush won the presidency after reaching 270 electoral votes even though Al Gore got the most popular votes. In 2016, Donald Trump got the most electoral votes even though Hillary Clinton carried the popular vote by more than 2.8 million. “There have been over 800 attempts to change the process from the electoral college to popular vote, those have come from both parties, Democrats and Republicans,” said Fonseca. But it’s the system we have in place. And once each state’s votes are counted and certified the college electors will meet on Dec.14 to confirm our nation’s president.