Polling and Election Paradox
Quote
The US Constitution prescribes a way to elect the President of the US:
The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows:
Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector. [...]
The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, ... and transmit sealed to the ... President of the Senate [who] shall, ... open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;--the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed... (Article 1, Section 1 and Ammendment 12, italics are mine)
Basically, what this says is that the voters do not decide who will be President, this body of electors, chosen from each state, decides who the next President will be. We merely vote on the electors themselves. This system was designed so that elections would be run by the states themselves, and not by the federal government.