The problem with the Electoral College is not partisanship or urban-rural polarization

At least, not directly. The system itself creates many different opportunities for mismatches between the will of the people and the will of electors

This paper — which builds a series of mathematical models to analyze the probability of mismatches between the popular vote and Electoral College since the 1820s — recently showed up on the front page of Reddit. That is interesting because I wrote about it years ago! More important is that it’s a really interesting paper, too, with lots of lessons for people (like me!) who think about ways to make America’s electoral systems better.

The professors and undergraduate researcher who performed the study are interviewed here on some of the main findings from it. The big one is that the chance a presidential candidate wins the Electoral College majority while losing the national popular vote is largely a function of national electoral competitiveness. Mismatches only happen in close contests, the authors find, so eras of close elections (like the one we have now) are particularly prone to mismatches — or, to use their term, “inversions” — in the outcome. This chart from their paper shows the…