With the possibility of a split between the Electoral College outcome and the popular vote, I started digging to find out how various politicians justify the Electoral College. To lay my cards on the table, I think that defenses based on states as autonomous political communities are more compelling than defenses based on the particular features of this political moment (say, that the Electoral College protects certain groups of voters like rural voters). Interestingly, one of the strongest defenses of the Electoral College came from now-defeated Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, who said:
“The Electoral College is another unique system the founders created to take into account a state’s population but maintain each state’s unique, independent voice when electing the president. Our founding fathers did not get everything right, but their system did create a union where every single state is appropriately represented in Congress and in the manner in which we elect the president.”
The problem, though, is that that’s not how most Americans think about representation nowadays.