Regardless of what the Founding Fathers intended, I do not believe the foresaw the day in which a few states - CA, NY, FL, TX, OH, MI, PA - would determine who would become President/Vice President. It is flat out not right that a slight majority “steals” the votes of the minority. And that is what happens with the current electoral college. If each state had to apportion electoral votes based on actual voting, no problem. But for one candidate to steal the votes of the other based on gaining a slight majority is just wrong.
The majority “steals” the minority’s votes in every election. The majority wins and the minority loses. Abolishing the Electoral College won’t change that fact.
Whoa!
Direct election by popular vote would give these same states even more leverage. They would represent an even higher proportion of the population and the vote than they do now, with the electoral college.
As it stands, because of the way electoral votes are distributed, high-population states are under-represented. And low population states are over-represented.
This is because every state starts with at least 3 electoral votes -- regardless of size (two senators and the minimum one Congressman).
Wyoming, Montana, North & South Dakota have only three electoral votes apiece -- for a total of twelve. Their combined population in 2000 was 2793K -- so that each electoral vote represented 233K population.
Indiana, by itself, also has twelve electoral votes...and a population over 6 million. Better than double the previous four states combined -- but Indiana has no more clout in the electoral college than they do. Indiana's proportion is one electoral vote for every 507K residents.
Then, we come to massive California -- 54 EV and a population of 33872K, a proportion of 627K per EV.
Thus, a vote cast in Wyoming (494K pop) is almost four times more powerful than a vote cast in California.
Another problem with direct election by popular vote is that it nationalizes vote fraud. As it is, the impact of the vote manufacturing factories in Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia, et al, is limited to their respective states alone.
But, with a national popular vote, they could produce "whatever it takes".
View the electoral college as a means of stacking the deck in favor of candidates who have some measure of broad inter-regional national appeal, rather than factionalized appeal to only specific segments of the population.
View it also as analogous to the World Series. It's not the team that scores the most runs who will win the Series. It's the team that wins the most games...