This one always gets me.
The election was effectively a dead heat. Our current election process is neither perfect nor precise, so a swing of a few thousand votes determined the winner. I'm sure both sides can come up with a list of discrepancies which 'proves' that their man should have won, but ultimately, there was no clear winner.
Ideally, there is one man - one vote, but in the real world it's a little fuzzy. This time the election fell in the fuzzyness. Besides, the electoral college elects the president anyway.