... like I'm 5 years old
The Electoral College is like a game that you play when electing the President and the Vice President of the United States. It's like a championship game where all the states participate, but instead of teams, we have electors. The number of electors from each state depends on how many members that state has in Congress, which is based on the state's population. The total number of electors is 538. To win, a candidate must secure more than half of these votes (at least 270). On Election Day, people are actually voting for these electors who have pledged to support their candidate. The candidate with the most electors wins.
Imagine you are playing a board game where each player represents a state. The number of turns you get depends on your state’s population. Your goal is to collect more than half of the total points (in this case, electors) to win.
... like I'm in College
Delving further, each state has as many electors as it has Representatives and Senators in the United States Congress. This system is outlined in the U.S. Constitution. The electors are usually chosen by the political parties and they pledge to vote for their party's candidate. However, these electors aren’t legally bound to vote for the candidate they pledged to in some states. This is where the term 'faithless elector' comes from.
There's also the 'winner-takes-all' system, employed by all but two states (Maine and Nebraska), where the candidate who secures the most popular votes in a state wins all of that state's electoral votes. This means that a candidate can win the popular vote (total votes from citizens) but still lose the election if they don't secure enough electoral votes.
To understand the Electoral College using Lego bricks, imagine each state as a Lego baseplate. The size of the baseplate represents the population of the state, and thus the number of electors. The tiny Lego bricks on the baseplate represent the people's votes. The color of the majority of bricks (votes) determines the color of the entire baseplate (state's electoral votes). Your aim is to color more than half of the total baseplates with your color to win the game. However, even if you have more individual bricks (popular votes) of your color, you may not win if they are spread thinly across many baseplates and fail to color any single baseplate entirely. This is how a candidate can win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College.
... like I'm an expert
For a more nuanced understanding, it's crucial to note that the Electoral College is a product of the 18th-century power dynamics and debates during the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. The Founding Fathers created the College as a compromise between those who wanted the president elected by popular vote and those who wanted Congress to choose the president. The system has been a subject of controversy and numerous proposed amendments, with critics arguing it gives disproportionate power to smaller states and can result in a president who didn't win the popular vote.
Interestingly, while electors generally vote for their pledged candidate, there have been instances of 'faithless electors'. The Supreme Court, however, recently upheld state laws that punish or replace these electors.