How Does the USA Presidential Election System Work
Here it is, in a nutshell
The reality is that we do not have a Presidential election. We have 50 individual elections, one for each of the states. And when you go to the polls and vote for the candidate of your choice, you are not actually voting for that candidate but for an elector whose job it is is to decide who should be the President of the United States. The electors collectively are known as the Electoral College. This, in my opinion, should be eliminated. It was conceptualized by the founding fathers, under the premise that the American people in 18th century USA were not sufficiently educated to handle the responsibility of choosing the President of the United States directly.
If, in fact, it is true that some 232 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence we are still sufficiently illiterate and uneducated that we can't choose our leader ourselves, then there is a problem with the American educational system that is far greater than ever imagined.
This scenario can result in a situation where a candidate can have more votes from common, every day Americans and still lose the election. Witness Al Gore, for instance. If the Electoral College had been abolished, Al Gore would have been President, not Boy George, and several thousand of our soldiers would not be dead today.
I'm getting off topic a tad bit. The bottom line is that whichever candidate can get 270 electoral votes on election night in November will be the President of the United States, and it matters little whether that person has the support of the majority of Americans.
