Yes, big states do get more electoral votes, but not as many as they would if the votes were allocated proportionally. For instance, California gets 55 electoral votes, while Wyoming, the smallest state, gets 3. This mean California gets 18 times more electoral votes than Wyoming. But California actually has 67 times the population of Wyoming.
Under the electoral college, voters in small states get disproportionate sway. A vote cast in a small state can count for more than three times as much as one cast in large state.
What would happen if electoral votes were allocated proportional to state population? I took Census population numbers for all the states, created a "proportional" electoral vote division and applied them to the results for the 2016 election.
All the small states in this experiment got 1 vote. California, the largest state, got the most, 67. Some other states got more, others fewer. (You can see the breakdown below.) Because of the way this calculation was done, I ended up with a total of 548 electoral votes, slightly more than the real 538.
The results? Well ... not much difference. Under my scenario, Donald Trump would have received 292 votes to Hillary Clinton's 239, with Michigan still undecided as I write this. The actual result was 290 for Trump versus 232 for Clinton (again, not counting Michigan).
Yes, I'm surprised this didn't change things much. Still, in a different election, proportional electoral vote allocation could change the result, especially if one candidate gets most large states while another get mostly small ones.
| State | Actual electoral votes | Proportional votes | Winner | |||||
| Alabama | 9 | 8 | Trump | |||||
| Alaska | 3 | 1 | Trump | |||||
| Arizona | 11 | 12 | Trump | |||||
| Arkansas | 6 | 5 | Trump | |||||
| California | 55 | 67 | Clinton | |||||
| Colorado | 9 | 9 | Clinton | |||||
| Connecticut | 7 | 6 | Clinton | |||||
| Delaware | 3 | 2 | Clinton | |||||
| District of Columbia | 3 | 1 | Clinton | |||||
| Florida | 29 | 35 | Trump | |||||
| Georgia | 16 | 17 | Trump | |||||
| Hawaii | 4 | 2 | Clinton | |||||
| Idaho | 4 | 3 | Trump | |||||
| Illinois | 20 | 22 | Clinton | |||||
| Indiana | 11 | 11 | Trump | |||||
| Iowa | 6 | 5 | Trump | |||||
| Kansas | 6 | 5 | Trump | |||||
| Kentucky | 8 | 8 | Trump | |||||
| Louisiana | 8 | 8 | Trump | |||||
| Maine | 4 | 2 | Clinton | |||||
| Maryland | 10 | 10 | Clinton | |||||
| Massachusetts | 11 | 12 | Clinton | |||||
| Michigan | 16 | 17 | ||||||
| Minnesota | 10 | 9 | Clinton | |||||
| Mississippi | 6 | 5 | Trump | |||||
| Missouri | 10 | 10 | Trump | |||||
| Montana | 3 | 2 | Trump | |||||
| Nebraska | 5 | 3 | Trump | |||||
| Nevada | 6 | 5 | Clinton | |||||
| New Hampshire | 4 | 2 | Clinton | |||||
| New Jersey | 14 | 15 | Clinton | |||||
| New Mexico | 5 | 4 | Clinton | |||||
| New York | 29 | 34 | Clinton | |||||
| North Carolina | 15 | 17 | Trump | |||||
| North Dakota | 3 | 1 | Trump | |||||
| Ohio | 18 | 20 | Trump | |||||
| Oklahoma | 7 | 7 | Trump | |||||
| Oregon | 7 | 7 | Clinton | |||||
| Pennsylvania | 20 | 22 | Trump | |||||
| Rhode Island | 4 | 2 | Clinton | |||||
| South Carolina | 9 | 8 | Trump | |||||
| South Dakota | 3 | 1 | Trump | |||||
| Tennessee | 11 | 11 | Trump | |||||
| Texas | 38 | 47 | Trump | |||||
| Utah | 6 | 5 | Trump | |||||
| Vermont | 3 | 1 | Clinton | |||||
| Virginia | 13 | 14 | Clinton | |||||
| Washington | 12 | 12 | Clinton | |||||
| West Virginia | 5 | 3 | Trump | |||||
| Wisconsin | 10 | 10 | Trump | |||||
| Wyoming | 3 | 1 | Trump |
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