What role does the popular vote play in a presidential election?

Answer 1

It has absolutely no impact at all. If something catastrophic happens before an election which could impact the general public's decision to vote well, it is the electoral colleges job to make sure that the correct vote is made. For instance, if the favored candidate's brother is charged with serial murder, and so people decide that they don't trust that candidate anymore, the popular vote will be against him, but the electoral college will vote for him because it is unfair to vote against the candidate just because his brother made a terrible mistake. The only impact people have in the election is that the popular vote is casted before the electoral vote, and so the electoral collage will usually vote the same way as the popular vote unless they feel that the popular vote was bias. The electoral college is not supposed to vote based on their opinion, but on the validity of the popular vote.

Answer 2

The electoral college is a purely representative forum. Each state is allocated a fixed number of electors (currently, equal to the number of Representatives plus Senators). How that state chooses its electors is up to the individual states. Most of them use a "winner take all" method, where the winner of the majority popular vote in the state is given ALL the state's electoral vote.

However, a few states (Maine and Nebraska) are using a plurality method, where the popular vote winner in each Representative district is awarded one electoral vote, and the winner of the state's total popular vote is given two more electoral votes.

Answer 3

The vote of the people has little to do with directly electing a President. The people actually vote for a number of people in their State, called Electors, and the Electors then cast their votes for a candidate. It gets much more complicated, but that is the basics of it.