That has everything to do with the way that Michigan allocates its votes and has nothing to do with the Electoral College as a system . Each state can allocate their votes any way they choose . Michigan could , if its legislature chose to , throw darts at pictures of the candidates and allocate its votes that way . Your particular issue with the EC is that most states use a First Past The Post system where whoever wins the popular vote in that state gets 100 % of the state ' s support . I also have an issue with that system , but that ' s separate from the EC itself . The Electoral College doesn ' t care how the state allocate their votes . The EC ' s only goal is to try and balance the needs and desires of urban and rural voters , to ensure that one group doesn ' t regularly outvote the other . Considering how often power gets transferred from one group to the other and that it ' s been happening relatively peacefully for over three centuries , I ' d say that it ' s been pretty successful . We had a bit of a rough spot there that one time , but it ' s been pretty smooth otherwise .