Very few Americans appreciate how useful the Electoral College has been to Vladimir Putin. Over two decades ago, George W. Bush was installed as president after losing the popular vote to his opponent by more than 543,000 votes. Putin publicly used our flawed election as an excuse to take the Russian Federation in a less democratic direction and Bush, loser of the popular vote, was in no position to criticize him.

In 2016, Putin clearly wanted Trump; the American people clearly preferred Hillary by 2.86 million votes. Putin’s candidate won as the blunt and crude Electoral College thwarted the will of the people again. Putin’s teams of internet workers helped Trump win three states by 78,000 votes; Hillary’s margin of victory in the popular vote was greater by a factor of 37, but that does not matter because the American people are of secondary importance in presidential elections. The situation was made much worse by the U.S. media, which failed to note that over 15% of Trump’s electors were entirely dependent on 0.00122% of his voters. This obscene concentration of political power in several locations adds to the suspense, drama and theater of U.S. presidential elections — which the media appreciates — but it cheats the plurality out of their clear preference and creates untold frustration, distrust and misunderstanding among the public.

A bitterly divided U.S. contributes to gridlock and paralysis, which benefits Putin. Ideally, presidential candidates strive to transcend local and regional concerns and stress issues which unite all Americans. But since winning the presidency hinges on only about four states (which get almost all of the money), the state parties of the politically irrelevant states — the politically dead states — focus entirely on local winnable races. National issues are not discussed or debated in about 45 states; the people of those states only hear one side of the issues. The total misunderstanding of the dominant philosophies and policies of other states has produced calls for some states to secede from the union and dismember the USA. Certainly, this unhealthy dynamic of “us versus them” and the bitterness it generates delights Putin.

The erratic and double-minded Trump made the U.S. a less reliable ally: At Helsinki, Trump sided with Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies and he promoted a moral equivalence between the U.S. and Russia. Certainly, most NATO leaders would love to see the U.S. adopt voter equality and fair presidential elections; perhaps they will encourage the U.S. to democratize.

Sadly, the electoral college, as it functions currently, illustrates what Alexander Hamilton presciently and correctly predicted in Federalist Paper No. 22: “If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of the majority … it gives greater scope to foreign corruption, as well as to domestic faction, than that which permits the sense of the majority to decide; though the contrary of this has been presumed.”

Without the Electoral College, Donald Trump would just be a footnote in the story of Putin’s quest for power.

Rick Jones is a retired adjunct teacher of economics from Weber State.

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