By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times

For only the fourth time in U.S. history, the presidential campaign has ended with an electoral college winner who won fewer votes than his opponent.

Under the system established in the Constitution, in 1787, the winner is the candidate who wins the majority of electoral votes based on the state-by-state tallies, and that candidate is Donald Trump.

Hillary Clinton will finish second, even though she will have beaten him by more than 200,000 votes in the national popular vote.

The electoral system is a legacy of the Constitution, part of an agreement between states, including Southern states that had more slaves than free men who were eligible to vote.

It was also an era when ordinary people living far from the handful of cities could not be expected to know leading figures of the time who could serve as the chief executive.

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