Bad analysis

AP reports:

The Electoral College was devised at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It was a compromise between those who wanted popular elections for president and those who wanted no public input.

The Electoral College has 538 members, with the number allocated to each state based on how many representatives it has in the House plus one for each senator. The District of Columbia gets three, despite the fact that the home to Congress has no vote in Congress.

To be elected president, the winner must get at least half plus one – or 270 electoral votes. Most states give all their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins that state’s popular vote. Maine and Nebraska award them by congressional district.

The AP tried to reach all of the electors and interviewed more than 330 of them, finding widespread aggravation among Democrats with the electoral process, but little expectation Trump would be derailed.

Some Democrats have argued that the Electoral College is undemocratic because it gives more weight to less populated states. That is how Hillary Clinton, who got more than 2.6 million more votes nationwide, lost the election to Trump.

This is incorrect. It is true that less populated states have more weight because each state has two senators (and hence two electoral college votes) regardless of size. The number of House Reps (and further electoral college votes) is proportional to population.

Let’s say you had electoral college votes strictly proportional to population of states. You’d do this by taking two votes off each state.

If so Trump would still have won with 246 EC votes and Clinton 190.

The reason Trump won despite getting fewer votes is because most states allocate their votes on a first past the post basis. Clinton won massive majorities in some large states but lost narrowly in many other states.