Electoral Cuteness

My personal problem with the electoral college system, at least on a theoretical level:



Lets have a hypothetical country with 50 states, where instead of a direct election of executives for the federal government, there's an electoral college in a kindof indirect or representative democracy. In each state, the popular vote decides what electorates are selected, but the full electorate from that state goes to the candidate. Each state has... Oh, lets say 10 electors average. Whatever. 500's a nice round number.



And yes, I realize that some states are that way while some are not required to do so. Let me just illustrate my point.




Okay. In states 1 through 49 (Aland, Bland, Cland, Dland, all the way through WWland), candidate A (the Awesome one? The Asshat? Whatever...) wins with 50.5% of the popular vote, while candidate B (the Better one? The Bastard?) loses with 49.5%. In state 50 (XXland, I suppose? Look, it's just the way the counting fell, I swear!), candidate B wins with 99.5% of the popular vote.

At this point, candidate A has 49.5% of the overall popular vote, candidate B having 50.5%, and candidate B won the popular opinion; but candidate A has 490 electors, and candidate B has only 10... So the less popular candidate, with a minority of the population (however slight a minority), has won the election in a landslide.




I don't like that. I don't know what a better answer is... But I feel like there should be one. :(




And anyway. Poor Alaska, with only 3 electors! They're the biggest state in the country, with Texas a far second around 1/3 its area! So what if it's the 4th-lowest population, beating out only Vermont, North Dakota, and Wyoming? Think of all the moose! Don't they get a vote?!?




How did this come up? ...I honestly don't remember. I was listening to a video game podcast this morning, and it came to mind. No clue why. Ah, well.