[Dr. Franklin]

The plain text of the 12th amendment says:
The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed;

Again, the lacuna is that the Constitution calls for presidential electors to be appointed by the legislatures, but the legislatures no longer appoint the electors. Thus, we have the whole debate about governor's certifying a particular slate of electors, and the need to decertify them. I believe that all of this points to the need to amend the constitution to fit the modern practice, and improve the result. Hopefully, this all leads to a round of needed reforms.

[Political Junkie Too]

Again, the lacuna is that the Constitution calls for presidential electors to be appointed by the legislatures, but the legislatures no longer appoint the electors.

That is not true.

The Constitution calls for the legislatures to "...appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors..."

The legislatures don't have to appoint directly, but they could if they wanted to.

I think the only modernizations that we need is in voting technology. Let Visa or Mastercard run the elections with credit-card-like voter IDs and point-of-sale-like voting machines.

The financial companies have no trouble validating a credit card purchase within seconds anywhere in the country, so they should have no trouble tabulating votes across the country, either.

Their fraud departments should be able to tell if a voter card was used more than once, or if forged cards were being used.

-PJ