That isn't how the Electoral College works these days. It varies by state, but generally each candidate chooses their own slate of Electors who are loyal to the candidate, and upon winning a plurality of votes, that candidate's entire slate of Electors are made, by state law, the Electors for that state.

It's important to note that in no possible way can Electors be considered elected representatives. This often isn't even public information available prior to the election, and your ballot contains none of the names of these Electors. Your vote for presidential candidate A, is really a vote for presidential candidate A's slate of chosen and loyal Electors.

This is in contrast to Federalist 68, which describes a system whereby non-politicians chosen by the people from among the people, at a state level, are to become the Electors for that state. The intent was to make the College both a deliberative body, and external to state politics.

In practice, Federalist 68's vision of how the Electoral College would work never happened. Early on in the country's history the president was indirectly chosen by state legislatures choosing the Electors.

In any case, what we have today are arguably the absolute worst people possible chosen to be Electors: party loyalists. In most states they are even required by law to be non-deliberative, i.e. not vote their conscience but strictly for the candidate who selected them. Since none of the details of how the Electors are chosen or the process they use to make decisions is constitutional law, the states can change how it works.

I’m confused, can you clarify you are referring to?

Edit: In what way was Trump “selected” and not elected by the rules laid out in the constitution?

Edit2: So not selected, and yes entirely by the rules we’ve always used.

In the US, the public doesn't vote for the president directly. They elect electors for their state who then vote for the president. This system is called the electoral college and the net result is that a candidate can win the popular vote (the majority of voters voted for them) without winning the presidency. This has happened many times in US history, and it happened most recently in 2016.

Well, only four times:

1867: Tilden (4,288,546) - Hayes (4,034,311) - Hayes wins. 1888: Harrison (5,443,892) - Cleveland (5,534,488) - Harrison wins. 2000: Bush (50,456,002) - Gore (50,999,897) - Bush wins 2016: Clinton (65,853,514) - Trump (62,984,828) - Trump wins.

To further confuse the issue, 2 Republican electors and 5 Democratic electors _voted for other candidates_ in 2016, though it wasn't significant in the end.

In the American electoral system, you don't technically vote for the president; you vote for the electors who elect the president. This almost never matters, except quite often.