The electoral college is the primary deciding force in our national election system. The candidate who has the largest number of individual citizens voting in favor of them does not necessarily win the election. That number is counted as the Popular Vote. The popular vote is however very influential in deciding how the electoral college votes.
As a citizen, we place a vote in our respective local district. In most cases, that vote is thrown into a pool with all other citizen's votes for your state. In almost all states, the majority winner in any particular state gets all of that state's electoral votes.
The number of electoral votes that each states receives is decided by the following formula. Each state starts with two electoral votes, representing the number of Senators for that state. This number is always two, regardless of the size of the state, as each state can have no more than two senators. To that number is added the number of House representatives for that state, which varies according to the population of the state. The sum of the number of state senators and house representatives equals the number of that state's electoral votes.
The reason that the electoral college decides many national elections is that most states employ a "winner takes all" approach to electoral votes. That means that if a candidate wins the majority of votes within a state (no matter what the margin), then all of the electoral votes for that state go in favor of that candidate. If a candidate receives a majority of votes in a state (say, 42%), they receive all of that state's electoral votes (100%).
Only two states do not have the "winner takes all" approach to electoral votes. These states are Nebraska and Maine. These states distribute their electoral votes proportionally to their popular vote.
In the 2000 election, for example, Al Gore received the larger number of individual citizens voting for him. He lost the election because he did not receive the larger number of electoral votes.
A candidate can win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote because the electoral college is weighted in favor of smaller states, who by default receive a minimum of three votes, regardless of their size. Effectively this diminishes the relative value of an individual citzen's vote in a large state like California, while increasing the value of a vote in Maine.
To add to the silliness, our local vote for president is not necessarily going to support that person. What our vote helps decide is the group of electors who will place a vote in favor of a particular candidate. To explain: each political party must nominate a group of people (called electors) equal to the number of each state's electoral votes. These individuals are who we are actually voting for in our national election. It is these individuals who actually decide our election, even though we don't know their names.
In most cases, it is expected that these electors will vote in favor of the party which nominated them, but they are not required by law to do so. These electors place votes just like you and me, and they can vote for whoever they choose.
In conclusion, our national election system is a joke because of the electoral college. Most people would like to believe that their vote is equally weighted against every other citizen in this country. This is not the case. Most people believe that their vote for President Bush actually is going towards that candidate. In fact they are voting to elect a group of electors to vote on their behalf. The idea of one-person-one-vote is not how our country operates. For this reason alone, I believe the electoral college should be abolished.