Don’t Blame the Electoral College
The actual reason Hillary Clinton lost the presidency
As most or all of you know, in 2016 Republican nominee Donald Trump was elected President even though Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton got more votes. To be precise, Trump won 306 electoral votes to Clinton’s 232…but Clinton received almost 3 million more votes.
With the Electoral vote giving a different result than the popular vote, it’s easy for people who believe in one person one vote to say we should abolish the Electoral College. They point out that votes in states with low populations count more than votes from more populous states. For instance, Alaska had 3 electoral votes in 2016 with a population of just under 742,000 (estimate from the U.S. Census), or about 247,000 people per electoral vote. California, on the other hand, with 55 Electoral votes had a population of about 39.25 million people (same source)…about 714,000 people per electoral vote. Or just under 3 times as many people per vote as Alaska.
Counting everyone’s vote the same regardless of the state they lived in seems a lot fairer. And certainly, if there was a single national popular vote, the election outcome would have been different. But can we blame the difference on the Electoral College?