Nilsen,
The short answer to your question, is in fact, yes. An induvidual's vote in the US presidential election in fact does not "count," all presidents are elected through the electoral college (a collection of people rather than an educational institution)--Generally around the middle of December. Long answer to follow.
Each state is alloted electors based on how many members of congress they send to DC, e.g. California has 53 members in the House of Reps. and 2 Senators, thus 55 votes altogether. The lowest number of votes a state can have is three, e.g. Wyoming with one memeber of the House and 2 Senators.
In 48 of the 50 states, the winner of the popular vote in the state will, in theory, recieve the votes of those number of electors--generally picked by the political party apparatus of te winner. Two states, Nebraska and Maine, will "split" their electors based on who recieves the most votes in each congressional district--there has never been a split in either of these states. Thus, in theory, your vote, on Nov. 2, is a vote for which party gets to pick the electors of that state. In Dec. the electors get together and cast their votes for the pres.
In history there have only been two recorded instances of so called "rogue" electors who cast their vote counter to the popular vote of thier state--in 1976 one republican cast his vote for Reagan instead of Ford (as he was suppossed to do), and in 2000 one elector for the District of Columbia (why they get a say I have no idea) left her ballot blank to protest DC's lack of statehood, Gore was suppossed to recieve that vote. Most states make it illegal for an elector to cast their vote for anyone other than the winner of the popular vote.
Why this strange system? Well I hate to dispel notions of "state soveriegnty" (a mythical concept born in Southern States to help assauge their massive egos--two words: Supremacy Clause), the electoral college in fact, according to its founder, Madison, was about distrust of the mobs. One need look at the old method of choosing Senators, they were appointed not directly elected. Madison thought, and the Constitutional Convention agreed, that the election of the president could not be trusted to the masses--thus an elite group have the real say-so. In fact, all decisions in our federal government are made by an elite class of citizen, instead of a popular vote--efficient and generally not subject to wild swings of mood. It aint perfect but seems to work.
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the "summing up" of the national popular vote is simply unecessary
