What is the electoral vote vs the popular vote? (US)
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The citizens don’t really select the president. All the states pick the president in their own little mini-election after the big one. This states-only election is the electoral college and is the election that actually selects who gets to be president.
States have a number of votes at the electoral college (same as the number of congresspeople + senators for that state) and each state’s votes go 100% towards whoever the citizens selected within that state (with a small number of exceptions… each state can have its own rules, but most follow this rule). This is why people say certain states are more important than others, depending on the number of votes the state has as well as how many people are in the state relative to the number of votes.
The “popular vote” is just who got the most votes by citizens all across the country during the big election. Legally it means nothing, but realistically it’s a better indicator of who the people want to be president even though the rules may select another.
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