That's because Federalism allowed for the birth of the Electoral College.. which gives the legislative branch much say in election outcomes and takes away from your own personal democratic abilities. The idea was to give little states more equal power to larger ones and not give the masses too much power. The popular vote means nothing really.. how would it even be effected by special interest? It doesn't effect elections. It's merely a statistic.
The popular vote definitely affects the elections as most (not all) states use the popular results to determine how the electoral college votes are dispersed. What is unforuntate is that a candidate can have a 51% majority in, say, a 20 electorate state and the winning candidate receives all 20 electoral votes instead of dividing them as the population voted. That is one scenario which makes it possible for a candidate to win the popular vote but lose the election. That is also why high electorate count states such as New York, Ohio, Florida, Texas and California are so important to the candidates while states like ND, SD, ID get conceded to the loss column. That is also why groups such as ACORN spend so much to allow dead people to vote and fight against voter ID laws. The system is badly broken and it really comes down to which group can best cheat the system in a close election as this one is certain to be.
