Remember that the country is the "United States"... from the start, there was a forced mixture of individual states operating for a common good. As a result, accommodations had to be made to ensure all the states would be willing to participate. There are numerous arguments about whether federal decisions infringe on state rights or privileges, but that's a topic for another thread. Suffice it to say that the federal government is not supposed to do that
Part of the reason for this is that it wasn't practical for everyone to go to one place to vote, so they elected people (the electoral college) to go represent the wishes of the people. To put this in perspective, England is (according to my quick research) 50,346 square miles in size. The US is 3,535,935.... just a wee bit different.
First, each state is weighed equally. This corresponds to the Senate, half the legislative branch of the US, with each state getting two senators, no matter the size.
Second, each state is weight by population. This is the House of Representatives, with the states getting reps assigned by their population. Smallest is one rep, and largest is California with... what? 55, I think.
Grand total of all representatives is 435. Add that to 100 senators, you've got 535. Add Washington DC, which also gets two senators and a rep, you're at 538, half of which is 269. So it's a numbers game. 270 wins it, no matter which states you get them from. You can win most of the states but still lose. In fact, you can win just 11 states:
- California (55)
- Texas (34)
- New York (31)
- Florida (27)
- Illinois (21)
- Pennsylvania (21)
- Ohio (20)
- Michigan (17)
- Georgia (15)
- North Carolina (15)
- New Jersey (15)
That actually makes 271, one more than needed.
To make it fun, we have counties too
Elections take place at that level as well.... along with the state, city, and units within the city (wards, precincts, boroughs, etc)...