US election process explained: Why Clinton lost despite winning popular votes in 2016?

people of United States are all set to choose ir next president and decide between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden. American voters have started to ir final vote on Tuesday, vember 3 (local time), result for which is expected to be anunced by end of this week. result usually comes out by end of final voting day but this year a delay is likely as a record number of people have voted using mail-in-ballots due to ongoing COVID-19 pandemic situation in country. 

US election: Voting process

Caucuses

election season begins with primaries and caucuses, where each state selects a candidate and n people get to vote for m in order to minate a candidate from eir political party. parties n hold minating conventions, where y formally minate ir respective candidates for election and vow to stand in support of him or her until election process ends. During se conventions, candidate also anunces a running-mate as in 2020 Joe Biden anunced Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential minee. ruling party if in power for only four years usually minates sitting president and vice-president as its candidates. 

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Electoral College

In United States, people elect members of Congress but y do t elect president and vice-president directly. Instead, re is a system called Electoral College, which consists of electors that each state gets based on number of seats y have in US Congress (House and Senate). For example, California, which elects most number of Congress members, has 55 electors under its belt. After voting process of US presidential election ends, se electors get to cast ir votes on first Monday after second Tuesday of December. electors pledge to vote for candidate that has received most popular votes in ir state. Congress n counts Electoral College votes and whosoever wins a majority (270) of 538 votes is elected president.

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How Hillary lost despite getting more popular votes in 2016?

United States president is elected through Electoral College, so it doesn't matter which candidate is leading in terms of popular vote percent. In 2016, Hillary Clinton mand to get more popular votes overall, which is number of people who voted for her across country, however, she lost because, in key swing states like Florida, which has more electors than some of ors, people voted for Trump. So, candidate who gets most popular votes in a particular state earns all electors as well. Trump won more states than Hillary in 2016 despite her winning more popular votes than him in election.   

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Why some states have more representatives than ors?

US constitution provides for proportional representation and seats to each State in US House of Representatives is given on basis of population. East of 50 states have been allotted 2 seats each in upper house of Congress, matter how big or small population is. District of Columbia has three Electoral College votes despite t having any representation in Senate as an amendment in 1960s gave people right to vote and allowed it to have more Electoral College votes than least populated state. 

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