Democracy?

 We are approaching another Presidential election where the possibility again exists that the winner of the popular vote could lose the election.

This possibility has existed since the early days of the republic but until recently was quite rare.

In the first 200 years it happened three times.  Al Gore possibly really won both but after an adverse Supreme Court decision dropped the fight over Florida.  Hillary Clinton followed 16 years later.

Much of the reason for this is that the population continues to migrate to big urban centers.  While the number of representatives in each state is proportional to the population the number of Senators is not.

So built in to the process States with smaller populations have a disproportionate number of electors vs their more populous neighbors.

It is also related to the fact that we award a state's electoral college votes generally on a winner take all process.  

This has in recent elections led to our swing state dilemma. 

So many states are clearly voting Democratic or Republican that their electoral college votes are not at issue.  A fairly small number can therefor sway an election.

In Al Gore's case it came down to a single state, Florida and a number of disputed ballots.  

In Hilary Clinton's case it came down to three mid-western states which were all decided by very small margins.

In both cases the popular vote went to the losing candidate.

Changing this will be difficult because of the opposition of the minority party which is watching its base decline.  Democracy is simple generally, each vote should count the same.

Ours don't