FairVote.org | Electoral College Distortions: “Winner” could lose popular vote by a landslide

It's no surprise that the Electoral College distorts the popular vote. This can be seen in any presidential election where the electoral votes are disproportionately allocated to one candidate or another. Additionally, the amount of voters does not directly correspond with the electoral votes a state gives to a candidate.

The expectation is that the Electoral College will inflate the popular vote winner’s margin, but it might not. We decided to look at the 2008 election for a “worst case scenario” of just how few popular votes Barack Obama really needed to earn a majority of the vote in the Electoral College. We didn’t touch John McCain’s votes, but eliminated all the “unnecessary” votes earned by Obama – meaning all of his votes in states he didn’t’ need to win and any “surplus” votes earned in states he wins (meaning any votes beyond one more than McCain).

President Obama could have defeated Sen. John McCain in the Electoral College with as few as 24,781,169 popular votes despite McCain earning 59,479,469 votes. In other words, he could have won even while losing the popular vote by 69% to 29% (with 2% for other).

· Looking only at states that he actually won, Obama could have carried enough states to earn 270 electoral votes with just 26,721,494 votes – meaning with a popular vote defeat by 68% to 30%.

http://www.fairvote.org/electoral-college-distortions-winner-could-lose-popular-vote-by-a-landslide