Although the United States likes to think of itself as the world’s pre-eminent democracy, where each person can have their say about who should be president, the Constitution calls for states to choose “electors” who do the actual electing. It’s known as the Electoral College. Including the first presidential election in 1789, won by George Washington, there have been 59 US elections. In all but five – two in this century – the president has won both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote. In 2000, Democratic candidate Al Gore garnered 543,895 more votes nationwide than Republican Geo…