Imagine a scenario in which a candidate in a democratic election receives the majority of the votes but does not win the election. It sounds contrary to everything we know about the
democratic process. But in the United States, this scenario can actually happen because of the
electoral college.
The electoral college is a system used for electing the president of the United States. Unlike the
popular vote, where each citizen directly casts their ballot for the candidate of their choice, the
electoral college relies on representatives, called electors, to cast votes on behalf of their state.
Many states require that electors cast votes according to the results of the popular vote for the
state.
Today, the electoral college is made up of 538 electors. States are allotted electors based on
their number of congressional representatives: one elector for each of the two state senators,
and one elector for each member in the House of Representatives. States with larger
populations, and therefore larger congressional delegations, have more electors than smaller
states. To win the election, a presidential candidate must receive a majority of 270 electoral
votes. Typically, an elected president wins both the popular vote and the electoral college.
There have been several instances in US history, however, when the candidate with the highest
number of popular votes did not win the electoral college, and thus lost the election.
In 1824, John Quincy Adams was elected president over Andrew Jackson, despite losing both
the electoral college and the popular vote. Jackson received 38,000 more popular votes than
Adams. Jackson also beat Adams 99 to 84 in the electoral college, but he failed to gain the
majority of votes (131 at that time) to win the electoral college. The decision went to the House
of Representatives, which elected Adams.
In 1876, Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote over Rutherford B. Hayes by over 250,000