Why don't we simply do away with the electoral college and go to a popular vote?

I would be very doubtful if we can ALL agree on that. But consider why the electoral college exists in the first place. What it does is bias the vote towards smaller states, a point which the smaller states insisted on when the constitution was written. It gives some recognition that just being a state means something. As does the Senate, in containing two senators per state however big or small the state is.

If you want to get rid of the electoral college, logically it is time to abolish the Senate as well. Congress could exist with just one House - there's no law of nature that there must be two. (New Zealand did exactly that with its unelected Legislative Council in 1950, and ever since, it's had a Parliament House that is only half used.)

So it comes down to WHY do you want to get rid of the electoral college? If it's because the US is bigger now, with 50 states, so biasing the election towards smaller states is no longer as important as it was over 200 years ago when there were only 13, then yes, scrap it. After all, it nearly always comes up with whoever won the popular vote anyway.

On the other hand, if on principle you think the reason for having it still matters, it could still be improved. First, I would abolish electors and make it a virtual college. Second, require all states to allocate their electoral votes by proportional representation instead of "winner take all". There are several methods for doing this - d'Hondt and Sainte-Lague come to mind. That would make it more worth voting if you aren't in a swing state.

But why bother with that? The compelling practical argument seems to me that as the electoral college elects the same president as the popular vote would have done just about every time, why not go for the simple way of achieving the same result? That's my reason for agreeing with you.

Unfortunately this requires an Amendment, and it requires only 13 states to block an Amendment. Just 13 small states that want to keep their electoral college advantage would stop it, and probably that's why nobody has tried.

NO, we CAN'T agree the the Electoral College is 'crap'. If you actually UNDERSTAND how the Constitution was designed, you would know that the popular vote DIDN'T EXIST for the first 40 years after the Constitution was written.

There are 3 DISTINCT methods of choosing 'elected' officials.

Members of the House of Representatives were elected by the people.

Members of the Senate were chosen by the State governments.

The President was SELECTED by members of the Electoral College who were chosen specifically for the purpose of SELECTING a President.

These DISTINCT methods were chose because of the different roles of each office.

Passage of the 17th amendment (direct election of Senators) and the effective elimination of the power of Electoral College members by even HAVING a popular vote are largely responsible for the DESTRUCTION of the Constitutional system of government

I don't think there's agreement on getting rid of the electoral college, even here on Y/A. But even if there were, the only way to get rid of it is with a Constitutional amendment and that's not likely to ever happen. Why? Because in additional to everything else the electoral college does, it also gives a small advantage to small states and there are plenty of small states--enough to block any Constitutional amendment.

How Does the Electoral College Work?

And Why Don't We Get Rid of It?

http://www.patomalley-consulting.com/Pages/How-Doe...

Because of the size of our country and lack of technology we have never been able to accurately add up the votes without being sure for a 100% fact that it wasent rigged so if a select few cast votes then it's a lot more reliable or so we thought until George bush lost the popular vote and won only due to the electoral college which raised another question now that we have the Internet can we do this a lot more accurately? Arizona tried this as a test and it worked pretty well but they are still doubting it because with groups like annonymus out their they could completely change the vote of the people with hacking so no matter what we do their will always be problems with the election system according to our government which is all the argue ment they need to keep control over who becomes president sorry if this doesent make sense I just got my wisdom teeth out and the doctors have me on ALOT of drugs

OK, so if it's so self-evident that this should happen, why hasn't it happened? There must be some argument in favor of retaining the current system that is accepted by enough people to prevent the necessary constitutional amendment from being ratified. That may not be a majority of people, but it's a big enough minority that it puts a dent in your claim that "everyone" can agree on abolishing the electoral college, isn't it?

If you did that then the big cities and areas around them would decide the elections all the time.

Also this is a republic that is democratic, which means the rule of law. Not the rule of majority or minority.

The main reason is we can't just the Right and the Left to agree on doing that!

We have come to the point where the will of the people is not right. The majority want a free hand out, and lots of loopholes for tax payers. It's not the system that needs fixing, it's the citizens.

No one would pay attention to states like N. Dakota or Wyoming ever again.