When the system was created during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, it was a compromise between delegates who feared possible corruption if Congress chose the president and delegates who feared mob rule and voting by an uninformed public if the people directly chose the president.Įach state's electoral votes match the number of representatives they have on Capitol Hill: two senators and however many seats the state has in the 435-member House of Representatives. has a separate body created every four years whose sole purpose is to elect the president. A Pew Research Center report following the 2016 election found that only seven of 41 democracies with a combined head of state and national government bodies do not directly elect their leader but rather do it by way of a vote of their national legislative bodies. is the only country in the world with an electoral college system. And with another election quickly approaching, those embers may flare again. That contentious election reignited a debate over the Electoral College. But Trump won 304 electoral votes, topping Clinton's 227 and making him the 45th president. In 2016, for example, Clinton walked away with 65.9 million votes in the popular vote and Trump with 63 million. The results from that count determine who becomes president. Instead, the vote is tallied with those of others who live in the same state, and the candidate with the most votes wins what is known as the “popular vote.” The designated electors for each state then cast their votes in mid-December, typically matching the winner of the popular vote of the state, though some rare 'faithless electors' go rogue and vote for someone else. When a voter casts a ballot, then, it doesn't directly count in the presidential election.

It's a rare but possible side effect of the uniquely American system of the Electoral College.Įnshrined in the Constitution, the Electoral College members - a select group of important figures in political parties in each state known as 'electors' - are who actually votes for the president. This phenomenon of a president taking office who did not win a majority of voters on Election Day has happened in five of the country's 58 elections: 1824, 1876, 1888, 20. Almost 3 million more people voted for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, yet it is Trump’s pardon that saves a Thanksgiving turkey's life and whose signature on an executive order can change American lives in an instant.

Presidential popular vote totals 2016