AMERICAN ELECTION: HOW THE PRESIDENT IS REALLY ELECTED

Many people do not really understand how the Electoral College System of the US elections works in deciding who will be President. Here is how it works:
America elects its president through the electoral college, rather than directly on the results of the popular vote. The 50 states and Washington, DC are allocated 538 electoral-college votes (ECVs). The number of votes granted to each state depends on its representation in the Senate and House of Representatives. Every state has two senators and at least one representative, so even sparsely populated states, such as Montana, are guaranteed three votes. Ohio, a “battleground state”, has 16 congressmen in the House, so adding its two senators gives it 18 ECVs. Washington, DC has no representation in the Senate or the House but was given three ECVs in 1961. Nearly every state awards its entire slate of ECVs to whomever wins the popular vote in that state (only Maine and Nebraska allow for their ECVs to be split among candidates). To win the presidency a candidate must secure a simple majority of 270 votes.  

States that reliably vote one way, such as Democratic California and Republican Texas, are largely ignored during election campaigns despite having plenty of voters from the opposing side. Candidates instead focus on a dozen or so “swing states”, ranging in size from New Hampshire, which has four ECVs, to Florida, which has 29. This gives demographic groups and businesses in fickle states greater power in picking presidents than they would otherwise enjoy. In Florida, parties woo the state’s retirees and Hispanics. In Iowa they pander to corn farmers who produce ethanol. The system also gives voters in the least-populated states more relative weight. Wyoming has three ECVs for the 586,000 people who live there, or one for every 195,000 people. California, with a population of 39m, has 55 votes, or one for every 712,000,

Supporters of the electoral-college system say that is exactly the point. It reflects America’s federalism by giving more clout to smaller states. Without the electoral college the candidates would focus on big cities and their suburbs. Instead, the system forces would-be presidents to seek support from a cross-section of the electorate. It also magnifies the size of a victory, giving the president a stronger mandate to govern—the winning margin in the electoral college is usually much wider than in the popular vote. 

The problem arises when a candidate loses the popular vote but wins the electoral college, which has happened four times, most recently in 2000. After a close run election in 1968, Congress tried to align the electoral system more closely with the popular vote. The move was supported by Richard Nixon, then the president, but filibustered by senators from the South, who worried it would weaken the electoral power of their region. If today's election turns out to be a nail-biter with one candidate winning the popular vote but not the electoral college, expect more calls for changes to the way America elects its president.

-----THE ECONOMIST