But your system isn't based on direct popular vote for the president. You vote for state electors and then they vote directly and the candidate who gets the majority of those votes wins. It's not a failure of democracy or elections not happening or being rigged if one with the simple majority loses to one with more state elector votes. It's just your weird system at work.

We do not have a democracy

You've had a few swings of the balance of the parties, replacing a sitting president and now upcoming presidential elections. The elections are mostly free and fair with large enfranchisement. I'd call that a democracy, even when the system has some interesting quirks and isn't working as well as it could be.

As for Bush vs Gore, I remember it being a big and controversial thing at the time but don't really know the specifics.