The old College try
Political scientist Judith Best gave a cogent defense of the Electoral College system today on NPR’s “Morning Edition.”
Steve Inskeep: This is a time of very polarized politics where [sic] we’ve had not one but two straight presidents who’ve been accused of being polarizing forces. The current administration has been accused of playing almost exclusively to its base of voters and not necessarily reaching out to more voters.
Judith Best: That’s not unusual in any election. It’s not the system that polarizes the country; it’s the politics that polarize. And what the electoral vote system does is it structures the election and forces the candidates to form very broad coalitions. Without that structure, why not go to the nine most populous states, that in themselves constitute a majority of the population, and promise everything to them? The states that are competitive are the states that are actually sort of microcosms of the whole country. And so they are the battleground states, and that’s where the candidates go and try to build their coalitions.
Inskeep: There is, though, a simple appeal to the argument against the Electoral College in that it doesn’t count everybody equally. The votes are apportioned based on representation in Congress, so some states have a greater percentage of the Electoral College per vote than some other states. And it’s very simple to say we should just add up the popular vote.
Best: If that were the case, then we’d have 50 Floridas, especially in close elections like 2000 or, perhaps, this one. Every ballot box would have to be reopened, counted and subject to court challenges.
Inskeep: So the Electoral College, in your view, makes sure that there is a clear winner, even—
Best: Yes.
Inskeep: —if there’s not a winner in the popular vote.
Best: Yes. And we’ve had 17 of those presidents, and some of them have been among our greatest presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, who got less than 40% of the popular vote. An election is a snapshot of what the populace thinks on that day. Presidents can develop mandates after the election, depending upon what their policies are.
Inskeep: As you look at things, is it more important to have a stable, functioning system than it is necessarily to count every single vote and do what you’ve described as a popularity contest?
Best: I think it’s important to count every vote that isn’t fraudulently cast, but that’s part of the means. The goal is to get a president who can govern because he creates a very broad, cross-sectional coalition. That being the purpose of the election, we do not want the means to destroy the end.
Last week’s “Morning Edition” interview with political scientist George Edwards outlines the opposing view. 
