I’m not from the US, either. But from what i understand, the issues comes from the US having a “first past the post” voting system on a state level.
The President is not elected by the percentage of votes, but each of the 50 states gets assigned a number of electors, based on their population. When a party/candidate has won the majority of votes within a state, they will receive all the electoral votes of that state.
Here’s a simplified example of how that works: Let’s assume 3 states with an equal ammount of inhabitants (let pop=1 million) and an equal ammount of electoral votes (let el=10)
State 1 has:
600.000 votes for candidate A (60%)
400.000 votes for candidate B (40%)
State 2 has:
200.000 votes for candidate A (20%)
800.000 votes for candidate B (80%)
State 3 has:
510.000 votes for candidate A (51%)
490.000 votes for candidate B (49%)
candidate A has received a total of 1.310.000 votes (~44%)
candidate B has received a total of 1.690.000 votes (~56%)
candidate B has won the popular vote, because most people voted for them.
However, candidate A won the majority in States 1 and 3. So candidate A will receive all 20 electoral votes of those states (which they won by only a comparitively small margin), whereas candidate B will receive only 10 from State 2 (which they won by a landslide).
As a result, candidate A will become the next president.
And the number of electoral votes hasn’t been updated in forever, so they aren’t really proportional to the state’s population anymore. California, for example, should have more votes than it currently does.
That’s it, with the added problem that those electors aren’t really evenly matched to population. Each state is guaranteed at least 3 electors, with more being added proportional to population. This means the states with the least population get the most electors per vote, and also tend to be pretty consistent and homogenous in who they vote for
I’m not from the US, either. But from what i understand, the issues comes from the US having a “first past the post” voting system on a state level. The President is not elected by the percentage of votes, but each of the 50 states gets assigned a number of electors, based on their population. When a party/candidate has won the majority of votes within a state, they will receive all the electoral votes of that state.
Here’s a simplified example of how that works: Let’s assume 3 states with an equal ammount of inhabitants (let pop=1 million) and an equal ammount of electoral votes (let el=10)
State 1 has:
600.000 votes for candidate A (60%)
400.000 votes for candidate B (40%)
State 2 has:
200.000 votes for candidate A (20%)
800.000 votes for candidate B (80%)
State 3 has:
510.000 votes for candidate A (51%)
490.000 votes for candidate B (49%)
candidate A has received a total of 1.310.000 votes (~44%)
candidate B has received a total of 1.690.000 votes (~56%)
candidate B has won the popular vote, because most people voted for them.
However, candidate A won the majority in States 1 and 3. So candidate A will receive all 20 electoral votes of those states (which they won by only a comparitively small margin), whereas candidate B will receive only 10 from State 2 (which they won by a landslide).
As a result, candidate A will become the next president.
Thats sad…
And the number of electoral votes hasn’t been updated in forever, so they aren’t really proportional to the state’s population anymore. California, for example, should have more votes than it currently does.
That’s it, with the added problem that those electors aren’t really evenly matched to population. Each state is guaranteed at least 3 electors, with more being added proportional to population. This means the states with the least population get the most electors per vote, and also tend to be pretty consistent and homogenous in who they vote for