An East Coast family member circulated an interesting image that may add some clarity to this. Each graphic is county by county throughout the country, but the first one colors the county based on the outcome of #45 or Biden. The second map is also by county but is colored based on the number of votes in that county. The first part was labeled Land does not vote, and the second part was labeled people vote.
IMO that is a critically important distinction and clearly illustrates why I believe it is so important to retain the electoral college. Without the balance provided by that institution, the unique and important concerns of vast regions of the country would be totally overwhelmed by voters living within 50 to 100 miles of the east and west coasts. The Electoral College is admittedly an imperfect system but, In my opinion, a stroke of genius on the part of the drafters of the Constitution. A significant reason for the survival of our republic resides in the Constitution's efforts to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. I am not saying that the distribution of electoral college votes couldn't, or shouldn't, be "tinkered" with, but I pray the current wave of populism won't throw out the baby with the bathwater. To my way of thinking, a far more important electoral reform would be taking representational districting out of the hands of politicians and putting it into the hands of non-biased computer systems.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
