Thoughts on the Electoral College

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15. They are not - states with larger populations have more electoral votes

The problem is that most states have decided that their electoral votes are winner take all. If the electoral votes were divided in the same ratio as the votes each candidate receives it would make a tremendous difference. By my rough calculations, that would have given Clinton 279 to Trump's 258 but obviously my math is not quite right, probably thrown off by McMullen's large percentage in Utah the smaller votes for Johnson and Stein in other states.

A major problem with trying to set proportional division of each state's electoral votes is that the margins are just too tight to divide them up properly. the closer the vote, the harder it is to decide who should get which odd electoral votes - and third party candidates seldom get a single one.

Perhaps a more even division of population in congressional districts so that every district in every state represents a nearly equal number of people and assigning one electoral vote to each precinct would work better - and the electors would be bound to cast their vote for president for the person who won in the precinct they represent. But that would still leave out third party candidates altogether.