Popular vote & electoral college vote percentages, 1824-2016

This graph shows thedisparity between electoral college results in presidential elections as compared to popular vote. In five“failed” elections, the winning candidate actually gained fewer votes than their opponent. In many others the winner got less than 50% of the votes but won by plurality. Almost all cases are above the line of equality where the electoral college exaggerated the margin in favour of the victor.

Source: Professor John Woolley, Department of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara
Graphic: Jan Diehm/The Guardian