Electrum is a kind of Bitcoin Wallet that you install on your computer. In a Electrum wallet, the software may hold on to many private keys,. These private keys are proof of your privilege to spent the remaining balance associated with each private key. Each private key has its own privilege to spend the money left of a specific Bitcoin address. The total balance of your wallet displayed is the sum of all the remaining balance of all the private keys in a Electrum wallet.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://www.bitcoin-en.com/backup-electrum-wallet.html
This post answers a question posted on Bitcoin Stack Exchange