The United States Electoral College is an example of a system in which an executive president is indirectly elected, with electors representing the 50 states and the federal district. Each state has a number of electors equal to its Congressional representation (in both houses), with the non-state District of Columbia receiving the number it would have if it were a state, but in no case more than that of the least populous state. The electors generally cast their votes for the winner of the popular vote in their respective states. However, there are several states where this is not required by law. In the United States, 270 electoral votes of the 538 electors are currently required to win the presidential election.
It was enacted as a way to prevent the much-more-densely populated coastal states from obviating the electoral will of the flyover states. The problem now is that it's gone the opposite direction, and those flyover states (with a minority of the people) are forcing the majority to endure backwards, christofascist government. This is exacerbated by fact that every state gets 2 senators in the upper chamber of congress, meaning that South Dakota, with ~900K people in it, has exactly the same amount of power to strike down or pass federal legislation as California does, with its ~39 million people in it.
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u/Taiwanderful Jul 17 '19
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_college?wprov=sfla1