text: The electoral college discourages people to vote in countries where there is already a dominating party. For example, California is mostly a democratic country that usually casts a (highly populated) vote for the democratic party's electoral candidates. So why should republicans consider voting in this area? The government has always tried to push out that "every vote counts", but is this really the case? Another good point of this is explained by Bradford Plumer again in "The Indefensible Electoral College: Why even the best laid defenses of the system are wrong" : "Because of the winner-take-all system in each state, candidates don't spend time in states they know they have no chance of winning, focusing only on the tight races of 'swing' states. During the 2000 campaign, seventeen states didn't see the candidates at all, including Rhode Island and South Carolina..." Swing states, as the're called, are the places where presidential candidates always hang around. They barely bother with the other states because they know they have already got or lost the vote in them...