The Electoral College

The problem is that all except two of the 50 states use the winner-take-all method of awarding electors. Maine and Nebraska award electors in approximate proportion to the votes received by the inidividual Presidential tickets. With winner-take-all, a candidate can narrowly win the 10 states with the most Electoral College votes but badly lose all the other 40 states and still win the Presidency.

John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump all became President in spite of losing the popular vote. In the 2016 election Donald Trump lost the popular vote by over 2.8 million votes.

We came close to fixing the problem in 1968, not because one candidate won the popular vote and another the Electoral College—Richard Nixon won both—but because the disparity between the two was so great: 0.4% in the popular vote and 20.4% in the Electoral College. However, Congress didn't follow through—Southern senators and conservatives from small states successfully filibustered—and the proposed Constitutional amendment died when the 91st Congress ended.

Given the current and probable future partisanship in Washington, I'm not looking for a sensible solution from Congress to Electoral College inequities any time soon.

There is a movement to address the problem through the States and without the need for a Constitutional amendment. Check it out at nationalpopularvote.com. You can enter your zip code and be presented with the opportunity to sign a petition to your Governor and state legislators to support the plan.

I signed it.