A president is elected every four years. The president isn't elected, or chosen, by a direct vote of the people. Instead, each Congress. (All the electors together are called the electoral college.) Those electors then vote for the president. Whichever candidate gets the most votes in the state gets all of that State's electoral votes. Once the votes are counted, a newly elected president has about two and a half months before he or she is inaugurated, or officially sworn in, at a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol on January 20.
