The Electoral College and elections. Sources-How Stuff Works, A Peoples History.

In the United States a system called the electoral college allows a candidate for president to win the election while not having a majority of the popular vote. This is an indirect voting system. This is not allowed in Russia. There, a candidate is elected by the process of a direct vote of the people.
The American system was instituted by the framers of the Constitution. Some thought a popular election was too reckless. Others didn't want to give Congress the power to select the president. So a system was set up that would allow voters to vote for electors who would then vote for the president. (Article 11, section 1 of the Constitution)
Each state has a number of electors equal to the number of U.S. senators plus the number of it's U.S. representatives. The electors of each state meet in their state capitals to officially cast their votes for president and vice president. These votes are sealed and sent to the president of the Senate who on January 8th opens and reads the votes in the presence of both houses of Congress.
Most of the time the electors cast their votes for the candidate who has the most votes in that particular state. Some states have laws that require electors to vote for the candidate that won the popular vote. Other electors are bound by pledges to a specific political party. However their have been times when the electors have voted contrary to the peoples decisions and there is no federal law or constitutional provision against this.
Four presidents have won with fewer popular votes than their opponents, but more electoral votes.
In 1877, the democratic candidate Samuel Tildon won 184 electoral votes and needed only one more to be elected. (He had already won the popular vote by more than 250,000 votes) The Republican candidate Rutherford B Hayes had 166 electoral votes. His people went to work. Since 1873 there had been a depression in the country. There was plenty to promise. The South wanted the Federal troops removed. They also wanted more of the federal money that was then going mainly to Ohio and Maine. In the East there was unemployment. Both the East and West were against protective tariffs, national banks, and railroad subsidies. The Hayes committee made concessions to the Democratic party and the white South. Colorado had just been admitted to the Union. They decided to appoint electors rather than holding elections. Hayes won Colorado's three electoral votes with zero popular votes. Hayes managed to secure 185 electoral votes thus becoming the next President.
The goal of the presidential candidate is to put together the right combination of states that will allow them to win the most electoral votes. The Constitution allows each state legislature to designate a method of choosing electors, thus creating more confusion, and little continuity in the process.
The point is, it is far easier to control or buy off or appeal to the narrower interests of 538 electors (that figure changes with the population) than to accept the choice of the electorate. The system is created to be gamed. It seems to me, it is time to return to the idea, one man, one vote. We need more challenges to these antiquated systems. Caucuses are of the same stripe...again created to give power to fewer people thus making it easier to control the results.