150 years electoral college, and now you all don't like it? I don't remember you having this in your campaign when you ran.
This is a Republic, not a Democracy. But we can compromise, and agree to the nationwide institution of the Nebraska Plan. Under that system, two Electors are elected statewide, and the rest are elected one in each Congressional District.I don’t think the Democrats will agree; it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Romney would have won under that plan.
In any event, the next improvement in elections should be to require, rather than forbidding, photographing each voter as s/he picks up her/his ballot.
If we do that, the Democrats biggest will have a lot more to worry about than resentment of the Electoral College.
But the most serious point about the popular vote is the existence of more than two candidates on the ballot; Hillary didn’t win a majority of the popular vote - only a plurality. In the presence of more than two candidates - and in principle, each voter could write in her own name, and nobody would even have a plurality - there is no uniquely suitable way of selecting the winner.
The Constitution provides a robust mechanism for selecting the successor to the current POTUS every four years. The POTUS is elected by the states, not the people. The state legislatures could appoint their states’ Electors without any popular election.
In fact, I plan to write my legislator again on the issue of the criteria for being placed on the ballot; Hillary obviously violated the Constitution when she was an officer of the US while also being a principal in the Clinton Foundation, which was soliciting and accepting contributions from foreign governments. According to the Constitution, that is not to happen without specific congressional consent. Any state has the authority to keep any such person off the presidential ballot inside its borders.
In the light of this past election campaign, my state legislature should consider requiring at least a cursory physical exam to assure that no obvious indications of disabling neurological disorder exist in a person applying to be on the presidential election ballot in the state. Anyone has a right to privacy and would not have to submit to such a requirement; but no one has the right to stand on that principle and still receive consideration by the voters of my state. The right of my state to establish that rule is not reviewable, in the sense that the state does not even have to conduct an election at all.
We have a republic, not a town hall style democracy.
The electoral college is part of keeping it that way.
It makes it much more difficult for a small number of high-population states to overwhelm an overwhelming majority of states in electing a president by mere popular vote.
A nation is a lot more than merely the numbers of its people. It is the villages, towns, cities, counties and states that go into making it a republic of united states, not a Greek style democracy.
The founders read history and saw that direct democracy only worked when it was closest to the people. The larger the area direct democracy was tried on it usually failed and led to a dictator or a dictatorial clique.
Republicans, by elections in the states, hold 69% of 99 state legislative bodies and 62% of the governors mansions. That is they have “popular” mandates from the people in over 60% of the states. Trump won pure and simple because he won more places in the nation - more villages, towns, cities, counties and states. That’s what a republic of states is about and that is not what a “national popular vote” is about.
We go through this crap every 4 years.