After winning its independence from Great Britain, the United States worked to build a new government. Three separate branches were developed to balance the power: legislative, judicial, and executive. After a few failed attempts to establish a process to elect an executive leader, or president, the Electoral College system was created. In this system, each state is given a number of votes according to its number of senators and representatives. While the debate continues on the effectiveness of the Electoral College, the system has been used for more than 200 years.