Every four years, some hardworking and enterprising journalists do some digging around in the political science literature, talk with some people who sound like they know what they’re talking about, and then resurface to tell the world about the counterintuitive finding that the Electoral College actually benefits voters in large states.
Well, as I like to say to my social science students: Just ‘cos it’s counterintuitive, that don’t make it true.
The Electoral College benefits voters in swing states, and it slightly benefits voters in small states (on average). Large states are not benefited (except when they happen to be swing states such as Ohio or Florida, but we knew that already).
See here for the fuller discussion.
I just wanted to put this out here to get out in front of the discussion. So that if any of you do see this argument floating around, youall can shoot it down before it fully takes off…