[JoeFromSidney]

One little-noted advantage of the Electoral College is that it stops corruption at the state line. No matter how many votes are stolen in State X, the corruption affects only the electoral votes in State X. The stolen votes don't get included in a national "popular" total.

[Jacquerie]

Yes, prevention of corruption was THE reason for the filter of electors.

Our Framers got it right.

[mvymvy]

Florida 2000 demonstrated clearly how a small number of votes in one state (legit or fraudulent) could determine the winner of a state, and thus the winner of the Presidency.

537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore’s lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes.

Hendrik Hertzberg wrote: “To steal the closest popular-vote election in American history, you’d have to steal more than a hundred thousand votes . . .To steal the closest electoral-vote election in American history, you’d have to steal around 500 votes, all in one state. . . .

For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be two hundred times closer than the 1960 election—and, in popular-vote terms, forty times closer than 2000 itself.

Which, I ask you, is an easier mark for vote-stealers, the status quo or N.P.V.[National Popular Vote]? Which offers thieves a better shot at success for a smaller effort?”