U.S. voters do not elect the U.S. president - voters' votes are used to elect the Electoral College and the EC elects the presdient - or, if that fails, the House of Representatives does.
During the first presidential election in 1789, in four of the 11 states of the time, the electors were elected directly by voters.
In two others, a hybrid system was used where both the voters and the state legislatures took part in electing the electors.
In five, the state legislatures themselves elected the electors.
Gradually more states began conducting popular elections to choose their slate of electors.
In 1800, five of the 16 states chose electors by direction election.
by 1824, 18 of the 24 states chose electors by direct election.
Direct election
In most cases simple state-wide plurality is sufficient to elect a general ticket using popular vote.
But in the first presidential election in 1789, for example,
some states used "open" list block voting;
Maryland used block voting but had guaranteed seats for different parts of the state; Virginia elected its 12 electors by first-past-the-post voting contest in 12 districts.
Other states later used multi-member districts, each covering a part of the state, to elect their electors. (https://fairvote.org/how-the-electoral-college-became-winner-take-all/)
This movement toward greater democratization coincided with a gradual decrease in property restrictions for the franchise.
By 1840, only one of the 26 states (South Carolina) still selected electors by the state legislature.
Every other state was electing its electors by general ticket plurality voting state-wide.
By 1872 no states elected their electors using the state legislature - all the states had switched to the general ticket method, Colorado having been the last hold-out. (https://fairvote.org/how-the-electoral-college-became-winner-take-all/)
And today only two states - Maine and Nebraska - elect at least some of their electors through a different method than that general ticket method. In their cases it is First-past-the-post voting in districts covering part of the state. But the other electors for each state are elected through state-wide plurality general ticket voting.
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