Will the electoral college of 270 ever change?

[5280]

Will the 270 to win an election ever change or increase to 300? Why is it still 270?

[Clark Kent]

Because there are 538 EVs, so a majority is 270.

For 300 EVs to be a majority, you'd need 599 EVs total.

[ElectionsGuy]

We need some new states.

[andrew_c]

No, unless more states are added to the union.  The House is capped at 435 members, which count for 1 EV each.  There are 50 states, each with 2 senators, for a total of 100.  Senators also count for 1 EV each.  And DC gets 3 EVs.  Add that together and you get 538 EVs.  This will not change as long as the USA consists of 50 states.

[Orser67]

Maybe if Puerto Rico becomes a state, which seems unlikely for the foreseeable future. That's really the one thing that has a significant chance of changing the size of the EC any time soon.

Technically Congress could also decide to expand the size of the House, but it's been about 100 since that happened (excluding brief bumps after Alaska and Hawaii were admitted).

[Blue3]

The cap on the House could always change.

They may need to find a bigger building eventually, though.

[muon2]

The cap on the House could always change.

They may need to find a bigger building eventually, though.

During a visit to the US Capitol a dozen years ago I asked about the space limitations on the number of members. I was told that the House Chamber could probably accommodate up to 600. As an example, consider the number who sit during joint sessions like the SOTU or Pope's speech.