The next major step in the Electoral College process is the meeting of the electors, who are
required by law to convene on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, which this year is December 14. The electors' votes are later transmitted to officials and counted in a joint session of Congress on January 6.
Some states have laws that seek to bind their electors to the winning candidate and in some instances stipulate that so-called "faithless electors" may be subject to penalties or replaced by another elector. The Supreme Court
ruled this summer that such laws punishing members of the Electoral College for breaking a pledge to vote for the state's popular vote winner are constitutional.
