Individually, they were quite flawed, but collectively, they were darn near perfect. The electoral college is brilliant and absolutely shouldn’t be messed with. Besides, it makes election night more entertaining.
The Electoral College concept is sound, its the current 48-state winner-take-all concept that is flawed [the exceptions being ME and NE].
The winner of the popular vote in each Congressional District within a State should be awarded it’s electoral vote. The overall winner of the popular vote within that State should be awarded the remaining 2 electoral votes as a “bonus”.
This method most accurately reflects the political beliefs of ALL of the people of the United States AND it would ENCOURAGE candidates to campaign in ALL districts throughout the country - since EACH electoral vote [except the remaining 2] would be up for grabs on an individual basis.
Yes, it makes it more entertaining for Democrat political machines who can use the early totals to swing an entire state their way and steal the election, as was demonstrated in 1960 when the Dems flipped Texas and Illinois to JFK by "finding" a few extra votes in a handful of counties and overturning the rest of the state. And of course in 2000 when the Democrats were able to use early exit polls to "project" Gore winning Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania (when the polls were still open on the west coast!) thereby depressing GOP turnout and damn-near giving Gore national electoral victory based on a fake "lead" in Florida.
The funny thing is, if you actually look at what "the founders" had to say about allocating the electoral votes, they were completely silent on how states would distribute the electoral votes each had, and left it up to the state governments to decide for themselves. They could aware all their electoral votes to the candidate will the tallest height if they wanted to.
That means post #148 (and many other freepers) suggestion of allocating all electoral votes based on congressional district (as Maine and Nebraska ALREADY do) wouldn't "mess with the founders intention" at all.
In fact, in the early days of the Republic, some of their states allocated electoral votes based on who the state legislature wanted for President, and regardless of who the citizens of their state wanted, so you "abolish the 17th amendment" types would have been quite pleased that they selected your President the same way they selected your Senators back then. Plenty of backroom deals happened with that method in effect, Presidential candidates could "win" states where they were insanely unpopular just by greasing a few palms. I think that's why that method of allocating electoral votes pretty much disappeared by the national stage by the 1830s, which was totally doable without a constitutional amendment thanks to the founders being silent on how the electoral votes would be distributed. Good thing, too. 90% of the state legislatures in this country are run by scumbags career politicians who only care about enriching themselves and could care less what's best for the state.
Yes that’s another thing straight popular vote would be very boring from an election spectator standpoint.
Doling out the E votes by congressional district would probably make it more fun to analyze, and benefit us.