Democratic members of the House of Representatives received more votes than Republican members in 2012 (53,952,240 to 53,402,643); yet the Republicans have many more Representatives (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/house-candidates-votes_n_2096978.html). How can this be? Representatives are elected in districts and not state wide or nationally. The party in power in the states can realign districts to minimize the opposing parties members and maximize their own. This is called "gerrymandering." It is usually done at the time of a census, but has been done at other times, also. Doing this, the Republicans won 234 seats to the Democrats 201 in 2012. Ah politics. How we manage to avoid Democracy in this country.
The same thing, of course, happens in the election for President because of the Electoral College method of choosing the President. In 2000, Al Gore received the popular vote but lost the Electoral vote which is what matters. Of course the Democrats called foul but the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Republican George W. Bush. The Republicans thought that might happen in this last election (because of faulty polling),* but Obama won both the electoral college vote and the numerical vote.
* Strangely, there were Republicans who thought that they would win the election for Presidency in 2012 (again because of faulty polling) and were all set for a celebration.
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