ITM AC & John,
The Electoral College has morphed considerably over time.
Each state gets Electors based upon the number of representatives, plus senators for each state in Congress (for Presidential elections, D.C. is considered a state, with 3 reps, no sen.).
So, 435 representatives, 100 senators, plus 3 reps for D.C., totals 538; thus 270 electors are required to win (one must win a majority, so 269, at exactly 50%, isn’t good enough).
John’s point that small states like it so big states can’t dominate was somewhat true initially (when DE and RI had 1 rep. & 2 sen. and 1st Congress had 59 reps & 26 sen means 59/(59+26) = 69% reps, 31% sen), but not so true today. Today, 435 reps plus 3 D.C. Electors, and 100 sen = 81% reps, 19% sen. So, some advantage, but not a lot—especially since the winning candidate usually does win the national popular vote.
Each state determines how electors are selected (they **_cannot_** be federal office holders), U.S. Const., art II, §1, cl. 2.
Originally, each elector voted how he wished.
Today, Electors vote on a winner takes all for his/her state (with the exceptions of ME and NE, it is the Electoral College after all).
Technically, Electors can vote as they please, but 33 states and D.C. have laws against “faithless electors”. To date, over 99% of Electors have voted faithfully. Of the < 1% who voted “faithlessly”, about 40% didn’t vote for their candidate because he died; Horace Greely 1872, James Sherman, 1912. To date, no faithless voters have affected a Presidential election outcome.
Thus, today, it’s not that the Electoral College so substantially favors small states that it can readily result in a candidate winning the popular vote, but losing the Electoral College.
Instead, the reason a candidate can lose the popular election, but win the Presidency is because the loser wins big in the popular election for the states s/he wins, but only loses by a small popular-vote margin in states s/he loses. Thus, the popular winning votes grand total is > the popular losing votes grand total. But in that circumstance, the Electors, in a winner-takes-all vote, don’t reflect such a popular voting pattern.
E.g., 2016, Clinton had 65.9 million votes to Trump’s 63.0 million; a diff. of 2.9 million. But, she won CA 8.8 million vs. 4.5 million, a diff of 4.3 million—well over the 2.9 million overall national diff. due to just CA alone.
Thus, with the winner-takes-all process, the “swing” states are crucial, since the winner takes all the Electoral College votes, but only wins by a small difference in the popular vote.
Clear as mud…
L&L,
cjh