Interesting alternative history of the 2000 election. I recall reading somewhere that in the range of 450-600 seats in the House, the result flips back and forth between Bush and Gore at random. Above 600 seats or so, and Gore always wins.
It's also interesting that in this scenario, New Mexico becomes the new Florida, with the election being decided there by just 366 votes.
Also interesting how under the winner take all system, Trump always wins in 2016, regardless of the popular vote defeceit. But in this timeline, where it would be the first time in 128 years, I think most people would be willing to forgive a 'error' like that in the system and just be able to admit that it happens sometimes and that as long as it doesn't keep happening, then it would be time to move on with our lives, sort of like hoe 2000 was, before 2016 came along
It should be noted that Trump's win is not robust with respect to how state boundaries are drawn. For example, if you move the Illinois-Wisconsin border 25 miles south and give the Florida panhandle to Alabama, Clinton wins.
I wonder if it's possible to design a system that rewards not having support concentrated in a few places, as the founders intended, while not being so sensitive to the lines that were drawn centuries ago.
That wasn't the Founders' intent. They basically had a choice of two systems in 1787 to select he executive and they didn't like either one.
The first obvious choice would have been direct national election. Even without the complications caused by the 3/5 compromise, they didn't think a national election could work. (And it certainly could not have worked without political parties, and not only were there no national parties in 1787, the Founders in 1787 would have been appalled by the idea of national political parties.)
The second obvious choice would be to do like many States at the time did and have the legislature elect the executive. While this would be workable even without political parties, the Founders were heavily into the idea of separation of powers and thought having Congress elect the President would give Congress too much power.
So instead, they had a special purpose legislature, the Electoral College, be elected every four years, apportioned in the same way as Congress, but whose members were prohibited from being in Congress, to elect a President, or at least narrow it down to a few people for Congress to decide from.
The idea that the Electoral College exists to ensure a diversity of areas of support may have something to do with why we're still stuck with it, but it's not why the Founders created it.
