What was the point of EC btw?
Madison preferred direct election but the Slave Power raised a stink because their franchise was much more restricted. Having Congress elect the President itself, like they now do in South Africa, was shot down because people were worried about 'intrigue'.
Madison also had a fear about the power of factions that might unduly impose their will on the nation as a whole without check. He perceived that these factions could be regional in nature and he didn't want a bare majority faction to defeat a substantial minority. De Toqueville described this as preventing a tyranny of the majority.
It is interesting to look at the last period in US history to see a split between the PV and EV winners, which was in the post-Reconstruction era. Both the 1876 and 1888 election saw the Dems win the PV yet lose the EV. The Dems had a huge surplus of votes in the Deep South and in 1888 a win of 49% to 48% in NY was enough to tip the EC to Harrison over the incumbent Cleveland.
Today the Dems have the same type of regional concentration of voters in the Northeast and West Coast that they had in the post-Reconstruction South. Narrow victories for the Pubs in key swing states can flip the EC as it did in both 2000 and 2016.
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