TLDR The electoral college is a pretty solid system for a federal republic but the way electors are apportioned is hilariously rigged and hard to fix . Food for thought if Elector apportionment wasn ' t done as Winner Takes All but on a proportionate or district basis , the election would have been roughly tied with the 3 rd party Electors making up the swing . This is a pretty good result for a federated system . Further food for thought that is actually roughly how the system was originally envisaged bar Elector freedom before states started gaming the system by mandating WTA which maximized their importance if the other states chose districts or proportionate . That started this race to the bottom where every state bar two is now WTA your electoral college results are basically garbage . The saddest thing looking in as an outsider is that while you drastically need to patch your electoral systems to get back closer to the original balanced design , it ' ll never happen . Primarily because you need a party interested in reform which is in power which in your existing system is an oxymoron .