• Before the November election, political parties in each state create lists of potential electors(generally active members of the party) who pledge to vote for the party's candidate in the Electoral College.



• A state's number of electoral votes equals the number of the state's Congressional delegation [the number of U.S. Senators (always 2) PLUS the number of U.S. Representatives.] The District of Columbia receives three electoral votes, as determined by the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution. See Electoral College Votes per State for your state's number of electoral votes.



• On November 4, 2008, Voters cast their ballots for a block of electors who, in turn, will vote for a certain presidential candidate. The winner of the popular vote in each state receives the state's entire number* of Electoral College votes.
  
  For example, if a Democratic presidential candidate receives the most votes in Texas, the 34 Democratic electors become the voting block representing the Lone Star state. Therefore, the Democratic presidential candidate receives 34 of the 538 total votes in the Electoral College. The winner of the 2008 Presidential Election is the candidate who collects 270 votes, the majority.



• Each state's block of electors (members of the winning candidate's party) assembles in their respective state capitol on December 13, 2008. At this meeting, the electors sign the 'Certificate of Vote,' which is sealed and delivered to the Office of the President of the United States Senate.



• A special joint session of the U.S. Congress convenes on January 6, 2009. At this meeting, the President of the Senate reads the Certificates of Votes and declares the official winner.

National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is a proposed agreement between states in the United States dealing with their allocation of electoral votes. This interstate compact would effectively shift the method of election of the President of the United States to a national popular vote system. By the terms of the compact, states agree to give all of their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner, regardless of the balance of votes in their own states. The compact would only go into effect once it was joined by states representing a majority of the electoral college.

Source: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

A faithless elector is one who casts an electoral vote for someone other than whom they have pledged to elect. On 158 occasions, electors have cast their votes for president or vice president in a different manner than that prescribed by the legislature of the state they represent. 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 when electors chose to abstain from casting their electoral vote for any candidate. The remaining 85 were changed by the elector's personal interest or perhaps by accident. Usually, the faithless electors act alone.

There are laws to punish faithless electors in 24 states. While no faithless elector has ever been punished, the constitutionality of state pledge laws was brought before the Supreme Court in 1952 Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214). The court ruled in favor of state laws requiring electors to pledge to vote for the winning candidate, as well as remove electors who refuse to pledge. As stated in the ruling, electors are acting as a function of the state, not the federal government. Therefore, states have the right to govern electors. The constitutionality of state laws punishing electors for actually casting a faithless vote, rather than refusing to pledge, has never been decided by the Supreme Court. In any event, a state may only punish a faithless elector after-the-fact; it has no power to change their vote.

Source: http://www.fairvote.org/e_college/faithless.htm