Should the Electoral College be revised or eliminated?

OK, why? And should it simply be replaced by direct popular election or something else?

@m2c -- It may surprise you, but I partially agree with you. While it would probably produce political policies more in line with my preferences, I worry eliminating the Electoral College would cause voters in sparsely populated areas to be essentially disenfranchised.

That being said, I think the EC as currently constructed grants too much disproportional influence to voters in low-population-density areas and  be replaced by some other mechanism. I'm not sure what that mechanism would be, but I'm open to suggestions.

You're right it is a surprise to me. 

@m2c -- It shouldn't surprise you. But maybe you haven't been paying close enough attention...;-D...

@Ozg256 --- In the original language of the US Constitution, the president is elected by slates of electors from each state, NOT by the overall vote of the people. Furthermore, it is left up to each state to determine how those electors will be chosen.

In practice, what happens is in each state a group of electors is chosen by the popular vote. So if Bob beats Joe in Iowa, a group of Iowa electors pledged to vote for Bob in the ACTUAL ELECTION is sent to cast their votes.

The number of electors is the same as the number of congressional representatives for each state. So California voters elect a slate of 55 electors, while Hawaii voters select a slate of 4 electors.

Only 4 times in American history has a presidential candidate lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College vote (including this year).

What seems to be happening in recent decades is the polarization of American voters has increased. Some states dominated by large cities (e.g. New York, Illinois, California) vote reliably Democratic while states which lack large cities or have other demographic quirks are reliabily Republican. States where the GOP/Democratic split is roughly even are disproportionately influential in the Presidential election.

HRC will win the popular vote by between 1 million and 2 million voters. Sprinkle a tiny fraction of those excess HRC votes in closely contested states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Wisconsin, and the election result is reversed.

Because the Electoral College is part of the Constitution, it would require a constitutional amendment to modify it or eliminate it. That requires a great deal more united popular will than currently exists in the United States. This post was edited by OldSchoolTheSKOSlives at November 14, 2016 9:47 PM MST

I still don't understand how a small state with 4 electoral votes can have any real influence over a state that has 55 votes.  No matter how you cut the cake, the smaller states have less influence because they have fewer electoral votes.  Ergo, electing a president by the popular vote would seem to be a more democratic (fair) way of electing the person who will lead the country. 

@SS -- While it is true that California as a state (55 electoral votes) will always have more influence on the presidential election than a small state like Idaho (4 electoral votes), it is ALSO true that PROPORTIONATELY voters in Idaho are much more powerful. It takes about 150,000 votes in Idaho to get an electoral vote. It takes about 500,000 votes in California to get an electoral vote.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2012/11/presidential_election_a_map_showing_the_vote_power_of_all_50_states.html

This is an artifact of every state gettting 2 senators and at least one House member regardless of the state's population.

There probably is some support for that on the "alt-right"...;-D...

Personally, I'd like to see the existing 50%+1 winner-take-all system replaced with some form of proportional representation and the Executive Branch more beholden to the Legislative, but that's probably too heretical for most Americans, who view the Constitution as though it was written on stone tablets by God Himself.

@Addb -- As I noted, our courts uphold "one person, one vote" in EVERY setting except the Presidential election. But making the Presidential election a direct popular vote would pretty much mean candidates would ONLY address the concerns of people in densely populated areas. Like you, I think there's a better way, but I'm not sure what it is.

@Bozette -- While I do NOT necessarily favor this, I've read of some political efforts to require their state EC electors follow the popular vote. In other words, let's say Pennsylvania had such a law. Even though Trump won the PA vote by about 68,000, any slate of "Trump" electors would be legall required to vote for HRC because HRC won the overall popular vote.

I would enjoy seeing such legislation take hold (at least for a time) simply because it would explode the heads of most "states' rights" advocates to see "states' rights" used to implement non-RAWF policies. But I think it would make presidential voting too inconsistent, because each major party would implement or repeal the law based upon how they expected to do in any given election cycle. I don't want any better-than-EC solution to be so dependent upon the political winds.

I don't think your proposal is practical because it would inevitably become a geography-based solution (as Kansas and New Hampshire use) with the same implicit problems as the EC, or it would become a round-off problem. Let's look at Hawaii, with its whopping 4 electoral votes.  The popular vote went HRC 62%, Trump 30%, minor candidates 4%, 3%, 2%, and less. How do you allocate the 4 electoral votes proportionately? No matter how you do it, someone gets hosed.

But I thank you for your thoughtful reply.

Actually, SKOS, I made no proposal.  I simply factually stated that there is no Constitutional mandate as to how states apportion their electoral votes.  I gave an example of an alternative to the standard all-or-nothing method used in all but two states today, but I did not propose it.  States could choose to apportion them as Maine and Nebraska currently do, or in an entirely different manner.  Point being, there are options available within the current system of electoral votes.    

OK, thank you for the clarfication.

Actually, OS, it's Maine and Nebraska, not Kansas and New Hampshire, that do the proportional thing.

@StuB -- Thank you for the factual correction. I remembered it was one Great Plains state and one New England state, but I was too lazy to look it up to confirm the exact states.

I had already named them above.

@Bozette -- Whoops! Upon further review, you also did name the two non-winner-take-all states. The only things I can say in mitigation for my inattention are:

1) I fell while hiking today and am a little banged up. Perhaps that caused my cognition to slip a bit.

and

2) Because Maine and Nebraska are low-population states, their alternative EC allocation schemes have not yet fundamentally altered election outcomes (it would take a less-than-10 electoral votes margin to make their practices significant), I didn't assign much mental weight to the details.

But I stand doubly corrected on which states allocate electoral votes in a non-standard fashion.