Wyoming is given 3 Electoral College votes, with a population of 586,000. One illustration of how arbitrary these effects are is that a state's status as a swing state can often be eliminated by moving a few counties into a bordering state, instantly devaluing the value of its residents' votes. Individual votes count, but in a way that is represented by states. All in total there are 538 electoral votes to be cast. Who the Electoral College really benefits In the 2000 US presidential election, the Democratic candidate got half a million more votes than the Republican. At last count, Secretary Clinton leads President-elect Trump by 200,000 votes. This prevents 2-3 very large states from overwhelming the popular vote count so that a greater portion of … Rethinking the Electoral College Who would benefit most from changing the way the president is elected? This means there is a reasonable certainty as to how the government will run, no matter which major party in the US winds up with the white house. 2. White voters are literally worth more under the Electoral College, due to the way US population is distributed. That gives them 1 vote per 195,000 residents. There is a risk of faithless electors casting ballots. The United States Electoral College is the group of presidential electors required by the Constitution to form every four years for the sole purpose of electing the president and vice president. California has … Because of the structure of the Electoral College, this can lead to voters choosing not to vote because they feel like their vote is not going to matter anyway. Its effects are largely random, and can be expected to change over time. 1. With the Electoral College, a general consensus can be maintained so the structure of the government and the independent political powers of each state and local government can continue existing. Without the Electoral College, there would be no effective brake on the number of "viable" presidential candidates. An Unfair Sway Some votes are worth more electoral votes than others. This isn’t possible in the United States since the electoral college grants equal power to all states, whether they’re big or small and whether they’re heavily populated or not.2. What is the electoral college and how does it work? It allows individuals to vote for the candidates they wish and then to have electorates cast ballots based on the voting trends of their region. The Electoral College Really Does Give Republicans a Massive Advantage in Close Elections, a New Paper Finds. Individual votes count, but in a way that is represented by states. Origins of electoral colleges. In national representation, each state and population district receives equal representation, in either the house or the senate, and that allows individual voters to still have a say in what happens. Often these represent different organizations, political parties or entities, with each organization, political party or entity represented by a particular number of electors or with votes weighted in a particular way. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required for a President to be elected. C. States with a large population benefit the least from the Electoral College. All it takes is 1 electoral vote. In 2016, there were 10 faithless electors. In the Republican primaries leading up to the 2016 Presidential election, Donald Trump was consistently receiving about 35% of the Republican vote. The benefits of the Electoral College come from the need to win state-by-state.