politics

There are plenty, including myself, that feel the Electoral College is indeed the problem. Proportional allocation would be a step in the right direction, true, but it doesn't address the larger issue that the number of electoral votes a state gets is not equally proportional to its population. This is a big problem.

In 2016, Wyoming cast 255,849 popular votes and California cast 14,181,595. Wyoming has three electoral votes and California has fifty-five votes, meaning Wyoming cast one electoral vote for every 85,283 voters while California cast one electoral vote for every 257,847 voters. In other words, a voter in Wyoming is over three times more influential than a voter in California. It’s worth noting that this statistic considers actual votes cast in 2016, rather than all registered voters. Many voters in large states such as California are dissuaded from voting, as the Electoral College dilutes their votes.

By the way, not all states are winner take all. Maine and Nebraska use systems of allocation that can split their electoral votes between candidates.

Edit to add: Here is the real solution to the Electoral College issue. The Interstate National Vote Compact Agreement. Once enough states have passed this law to add up to 270 Electoral votes, then all of those states will allocate all their votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

Under the National Popular Vote law, no voter will have their vote cancelled out at the state-level because their choice differed from majority sentiment in their state. Instead, every voter’s vote will be added directly into the national count for the candidate of their choice. This will ensure that every voter, in every state, will be politically relevant in every presidential election—regardless of where they live.

The National Popular Vote law is a constitutionally conservative, state-based approach that retains the power of the states to control how the President is elected and retains the Electoral College. National Popular Vote has been enacted by 16 states and the District of Columbia, including 4 small states (DE, HI, RI, VT), 9 medium-sized states (CO, CT, MD, MA, MN, NJ, NM, OR, WA), and 3 big states (CA, IL, NY). These jurisdictions have 205 of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate the law.

The bill has also passed one legislative chamber in 8 states with 78 electoral votes (AR, AZ, ME, MI, NC, NV, OK, VA), including the Republican-controlled Arizona House and Oklahoma Senate. It has passed both houses of Maine and Nevada at various times, and is endorsed by 3,705 state legislators.