They will then prepare what is called a “certificate of vote” with the results, which is then mailed or delivered via courier to the National Archives, where it becomes part of the nation’s official records, and to Congress.

Do electors have to vote according to popular vote results in their states?

Not necessarily. At least one elector has said he will buck his party and not vote for Mr. Trump. Nothing in the Constitution, or in federal law, binds electors to vote a particular way. There are some state laws that bind them to vote according to the popular vote outcome in that state; others are bound by more informal pledges to their party.

Under some state laws, so-called faithless electors who vote against their state’s results may be fined or even disqualified and replaced. No elector has been prosecuted for doing so, but then again, almost every elector has voted with his or her state’s results in the past. The Supreme Court has not weighed in on whether pledges and the related penalties are constitutional.

Who counts the electoral votes?

On Friday, Jan. 6, at 1 p.m., members of the House and Senate will meet in the House chamber to count those votes. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., as the departing president of the Senate, is expected to preside over the count, during which every state’s vote is opened and announced in alphabetical order.

Mr. Biden will then declare the winner based on who has the majority of votes — at least 270. (That has led, three times, to an awkward moment when the sitting vice president has announced his own defeat, according to the House historian’s office. That happened most recently in 2001, to Al Gore.)

And that’s it?

Not quite. At that point, Mr. Biden will ask if there are any objections, and lawmakers can then challenge either individual electoral votes or state results as a whole. If an elector has chosen to vote against state results, that is the moment when lawmakers can petition to throw that vote out.