Electoral College Defense

Seeing as Hillary has more popular votes than Trump, the argument against the Electoral College is in full swing.  That she didn't break 50% should end the discussion.  In most cases of multiple candidates where no one reaches 50% plus 1 vote, there is a run off between the two top voter getters.  In US Presidential Elections, the electoral college serves as the run off.  Case closed.  But that isn't going to satisfy anyone so let's ponder the fictional Republic of Moparcos.

Much like Gaul, Moparcos is divided in three parts.  There is the mountainous northern state of Mo, the central prairie state of Par, and the warm coastal state of Cos.  All three states have roughly the same population.  The Founders of Moparcos adopted an Electoral College and all three states have 10 electoral votes.  Each state has a population of 6 million.  As it happens, this is an election year in Moparcos.

Governor Bronze of Cos is running for president against General Ramrod, hero of the recent war.  Thanks to his position as governor, Bronze uses his political machine to increase turnout in his state.  Of the 4 million votes cast, the popular governor wins 3 million and takes the state's 10 electoral votes.  General Ramrod grew up in Par and is a favorite son but he doesn't have a ground game.  The turnout is only 3 million voters and Ramrod edges out Bronze by 1.6 million votes to 1.4 million, getting the 10 electoral votes.  Neither General Ramrod nor Governor Bronze have much of a ground game in Mo.  As it happens, there is a huge snow storm on election day and the turnout is dismal.  Only 2 million voters go to the polls but Ramrod wins 1.1 million votes to Bronze's 900 thousand.  Thus, Ramrod gets the electoral votes and is the next president of Moparcos.

 

But let's look at that again.  Bronze won 3 million votes in Cos, 1.4 million in Par, and 0.9 million in Mo for a grand total of 5.3 million votes out of 9 million cast.  He got 59% of the popular vote and lost!  However, General Ramrod won two states that contain 12 million people where Bronze won 1 state of 6 million.  The electoral college performs a vote-weighting.  The voters in each state are 'speaking' for the 6 million people in the state.  That Cos had a 67% turnout vs. the 33% turnout from Mo doesn't mean that Cos should have double the influence for national politics.

Let's take a current election example:

Arizona, Massachusetts, and Indiana have just about the same population and account for 11 electoral votes each.  Trump won Arizona (49.5% to 45.5%) and Indiana (57.6% to 38.2%%).  Hillary won Massachusetts (60.8% to 33.5%).  Trump won 22 electoral votes to Hillary's 11.  However, far more voters turned out in Massachusetts (3.2 million) than in Arizona (2.1 million).  Adding up the popular vote of the three states, Hillary wins with 3.9 million votes to Trump's 3.7 million.  Massachusetts provided 40% of the popular votes but only represents 1/3 of the population of these three states.  By contrast, Arizona only provided 26% of the popular votes despite being the most populous of the three states.

Arizona is more than 10 times the size of Massachusetts.  The population density is 57 people per square mile.  Massachusetts has a density of 840 people per square mile.  Where will it be easier to organize voters?  In a popular vote system, population dense areas will have far more say than less dense areas even if the overall populations are equal.  The electoral college accounts for this.  In a popular vote system, the rural areas will be ruled by the urban centers.