Universal suffrage means that even the illegible get to vote.
The difference between a king and a president is that a king is the son of his father but a president is not. It is possible to get the majority of electoral votes without getting the majority of popular votes. Anyone who can ever understand how this works gets to be president. Some of our presidents never did much else and are famous only because they became president. The president has the power to appoint and disappoint the members of his cabinet.