I don’t think you can talk usefully about states’ rights, or the electoral college for that matter, without specific reference to current US politics.
They certainly seem very relevant to today’s state of affairs, but I think that’s been true since the nation’s founding. “Everything old is new again,” but maybe not in a good way.
Talking about systems of government here may provide some inspiration the next dystopian/utopian piece of IF. It certainly could be an interesting game mechanic.
The problem is, very simply, the electors in the Electoral College are not your representatives. They are almost never actual Senators or House Reps (plus 3 electors representing DC), even though they equal them in number. Instead, they are a slate of electors proposed by each state’s political parties, with whichever presidential nominee wins each state determining which of its parties’ slates is selected.
Generally, they pick people who have pledged to vote for the winner in the case that their party’s nominee for president won the state. But a few electors in history have subsequently not done so.
And were they later dismissed if they did not vote as they had?
Well, they’re all dismissed no matter what. They don’t do anything as electors, ever, except voting for the president once. Because they’re chosen on the basis of party loyalty, they’re often (though not always) a prominent state party official/state representative/state senator/etc, who would be pretty unlikely to rebuke the party choice. But most states impose fines or invalidate faithless votes and force faithless electors to change their votes or be replaced with faithful electors.