Hillary Clinton won more votes than Donald Trump in last month’s presidential election. But due to the magic of the Electoral College, Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States.
Yes, the November 8 “presidential election” was in actuality the venerable ritual in which the residents of Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and a few other states got the privilege of choosing the president of the United States of America.
Or, to be more precise, it was the venerable ritual in which all the states chose their representatives in the Electoral College. It’s those people who are going to technically pick the president this Monday.
It’s a patchwork Frankenstein’s monster of a system, which in the best of times merely ensures millions of Americans’ votes are irrelevant to the outcome because they don’t live in competitive states, and in the worst of times could be vulnerable to a major crisis.
Amazingly enough, though, nothing in the Constitution gives American voters the right to choose their president. That power is reserved for those 538 actual people who will meet in their respective states this Monday — the electors. It's up to the states to decide how to appoint them.
Despite the oddness and unfairness of this system, its defenders argue that it ordinarily “works” just fine. States award electors based on the outcome of the popular vote in the state. Those electors almost always end up voting the way they’re expected to. And the winner of the national popular vote is usually also the winner in the Electoral College.
But “usually” will be cold comfort to Democrats, who have now won the popular vote and lost the Electoral College in two of the past five elections.
