The Electoral College has an interesting track record. In 1824, Andrew Jackson got the popular vote but John Quincy Adams became president.

In 2000, Al Gore got the majority of popular votes. So did Samuel J. Tilden in 1876:

"After the Civil War, federal troops were stationed throughout the South in order to keep the peace, ensure the enforcement of Reconstruction policies, and to protect the rights of the former slaves and their white supporters.  Between 1869 and 1875, federal troops were removed from political duty in all of the other former Confederate states, except for Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina.  When that occurred, the biracial, Republican state governments established under Reconstruction soon collapsed and were replaced by white-only, Democratic "Redeemer" administrations.  

Because of their race and association with the Republican party, Southern blacks were often intimidated with threats or acts of violence by paramilitary groups of Democrats in order to keep black men from casting their ballots. In East Feliciana, Lousiana, for example, the majority of registered voters in 1876 were black and Republican, yet the election results recorded only one Republican vote for the parish.  In South Carolina, the paramilitary Red Shirts were a formidable force in preventing blacks from voting.  In Florida, Democrats distributed Tilden tickets decorated with Republican symbols among the illiterate former slaves.  In all three states, ballot boxes were stuffed with multiple Democratic votes. Had elections in 1876 been free and fair, Hayes and the Republicans might have carried not only the three contested states, but other Southern states as well."

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