Makes Smaller States More Important
Some advantages of the Electoral College are that it makes smaller states, important. “Changing the system would allow presidential candidates to ignore small-population states like Iowa,” Iowa Senator, Chuck Grassley said. He added, “We want a national president, not a regional president.” In the 2012 election, Iowa received more attention than most states, because it was a “battleground” state, meaning it could go any way. This made Iowa, and other smaller states more relevant, thanks to the Electoral College. It made candidates campaign out of their home region. The main reason for this is that almost every state uses a “winner take all system.” This means that whatever candidate wins the election in the state, they get all the states electoral votes. If a candidate has 50.1% of the vote in a state, and the other candidate has 49.9% of the vote, the candidate with the majority gets all the electoral votes. In a close election especially, it is much more beneficial to a candidate to win six electoral votes in Iowa, than having a virtual tie in the popular vote in Iowa.
Decreases Effect of Voter Fraud.
The Electoral College also makes voter fraud less of a factor. If someone is registered twice, or votes more than once for whatever reason, in a popular vote, that could become a problem in a close election. If the Electoral College was done by state, like it currently is, only voter fraud in that state is an issue, and it would have to be a close state to make it alter results, and not that often does only one state make a difference in the results of the election as a whole. Either way, voter fraud can be an issue in elections. “Vote early, vote often,” It is likely that William Thompson, Chicago Mayor in the 20s and 30s invented the saying. (http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~geoff/classes/hmc.cs070.200401/votequote.html)
Popular Vote and Electoral College Usually Produce the Same Results
The final advantage of the Electoral College is that in almost all the elections, the winner of the popular vote wins the Electoral College. “The winner of the popular vote receives an average of a 20 percent increase in his Electoral College vote,”Virginian Pilot. So really the popular vote is usually the same result as the electoral vote, so about 90% of the time, no matter what system, the same candidate would win. This brings us to the first disadvantage of the Electoral College.