When most people think of a presidential election they envision the two major parties’ candidates. But the US electoral system is more complex than that. Voters choose not just a president but also members of Congress. (The House of Representatives and the Senate). These members pass laws that govern the country. And voters also select state and local government officials.

As for the presidential election, the Constitution sets up a process called the Electoral College that ensures no one individual can have a monopoly on the presidency. Rather than simply counting popular votes, each state’s “electors” meet in December after the general election and vote for president. A candidate needs a majority of electoral votes to win.

The system has its critics, but the founders put it in place to force candidates to broaden their appeal. The founders hoped that this would reduce the possibility of demagogues winning the presidency.

Each state gets a certain number of electoral votes based on its representation in Congress. States with large populations, like New York or California, have more electoral votes. Smaller states, like Vermont or Nebraska, have fewer. The Electoral College system encourages presidential campaigns to spend exponentially more time and money in so-called swing states where no single candidate or party has overwhelming support. As a result, the front-runnerths lead almost always narrows by election day. In fact, in 10 of the last 12 elections the first-place contenderths have had a big lead in June that has disappeared by election day.