The current system does not provide some kind of
check on the “mobs.” There have been 22,000 electoral
votes cast since presidential elections became
competitive (in 1796), and only 10 have been cast for
someone other than the candidate nominated by the
elector’s own political party.  The electors now are
dedicated party activists of the winning party who
meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally
predictable rubberstamped votes in accordance with
their pre-announced pledges. That’s the Electoral
College now.
 
The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not
require states to allow their citizens to vote for
president, much less award all their electoral votes
based upon the vote of their citizens.

The presidential election system we have today is not
in the Constitution. State-by-state winner-take-all
laws to award Electoral College votes, were
eventually enacted by states, using their exclusive
power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the
Constitution. Now our current system can be changed
by state laws again.
 
Unable to agree on any particular method for
selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers
left the choice of method exclusively to the states
in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution—
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the
Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors
. . .”  The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly
characterized the authority of the state legislatures
over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as
“plenary” and “exclusive.”

In 1789, in the nation’s first election, only three
states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method
to award electoral votes.

Supporters of National Popular Vote find it hard to
believe the Founding Fathers would endorse an
electoral system where more than 2/3rds of the states
and voters now are completely politically irrelevant. 
9 of the original 13 states are ignored now.
Presidential campaigns spend 98% of their resources
in just 15 battleground states, where they aren’t
hopelessly behind or safely ahead, and can win the
bare plurality of the vote to win all of the state’s
electoral votes. Now the majority of Americans, in
small, medium-small, average, and large states are
ignored. Virtually none of the small states receive
any attention. None of the 10 most rural states is a
battleground state. 19 of the 22 lowest population
and medium-small states, and 17 medium and big states
like CA, GA, NY, and TX are ignored. That’s over 85
million voters. Once the primaries are over,
presidential candidates don’t visit or spend
resources in 2/3rds of the states. Candidates know
the Republican is going to win in safe red states,
and the Democrat will win in safe blue states, so
they are ignored. More than 85 million voters have
been just spectators to the general election. States
have the responsibility and power to make their
voters relevant in every presidential election.
 
With national popular vote, with every vote equal,
candidates will truly have to care about the issues
and voters in all 50 states and DC.  A vote in any
state will be as sought after as a vote in Florida. 
Part of the genius of the Founding Fathers was
allowing for change as needed. When they wrote the
Constitution, they didn’t give us the right to vote,
or establish state-by-state winner-take-all, or
establish any method, for how states should award
electoral votes. Fortunately, the Constitution
allowed state legislatures to enact laws allowing
people to vote and how to award electoral votes.

James M. Martin, Dec. 16 4:08 pm - How about not stepping in
Mississippi either!  Way….ellll, I would spit at it across the border.

Marian Griffith, you exceeded expectations—4 weaknesses vs. 2 promised.

1) Yes, sometimes the winner of the popular vote loses the election.  Happened 4 times.  (But no winners those years were anywhere NEAR the 25%+1 vote).
Of Jackson, Tilden, Cleveland & Gore, two later became president anyway. 
4 elections out of what, 55?  If that’s too much to bear, I’ll concede the point. 
Sometimes the popular vote winner will lose.

2)Disenfranchises voters in non-swing states? 
Bah, Humbug!  Each of us is free to vote or not.  The “disinfranchise” arguement is only for the sake of partisan expedience.
Swing (or “battleground”) states change over time and with issues, as do number of electoral votes for a given state.
And if you want to talk about disinfranchised voters, enact the popular vote then see how many candidates visit North Dakota.

3)Open to corrupting influences. 
Actually, the Electoral College is a safeguard AGAINST them. (Think a Glass-Steagall for Presidential Elections)
Anyone wanting to corrupt the election has to focus on high value areas (NOT North Dakota) where increased scrutiny can be placed in advance. 
But in a popular-vote national election, a voter fraud scheme could be hatched anywhere or everywhere.
Then let’s say there’s an issue that demands a recount, even in an honest election.  Florida 2000 was a mess, but a NATIONAL recount?  Good luck with that.

4) Barriers to entry for new political party.  How so?  You’ll have to connect the dots for me on that one. 
Interesting to note, though, that the Electoral College process was initiated in an environment where many candidates and plurality (not majority) popular vote winners were anticipated.
(and no political parties—not trusted at the time, imagine that!)

Bottom line:  Perhaps painful to admit, but the Founders were wiser 224 years ago than we are today.

Kohler et al:

The Electoral College was decided upon as the method for selecting the President at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.  It’s not part of the Constitution, but most of the same players were at work here, Founding Father-wise.

Yes, along the way, there have been some revisions in the Electoral College, most importantly the 12th Amendment, and the function of the College can be further revised or eliminated. 
It’s not a Constitutional matter.

More on the Electoral College here:
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/electoralcoll.htm

But the issue isn’t fleeting partisan advantage,  either. 
The 2000 election, the closest ever, could have easily gone to Gore with Bush winning the popular vote—just before the election, Kiplinger predicted exactly that.

So what remains after all the history lessons, political posturing, regretted outcomes and hypotheticals are played out?

Just the question: Do you want a democracy where 2 wolves and a sheep vote on what’s for dinner? 

Or do you keep a system in place that was designed to protect minority interests and that’s worked to that end for over 200 years?

I feel fully vindicated.  For ages now, I have referred to this buffoon as Sen. Bitch McComical, for the simple reason is that he looks like an old woman in tight-assed GOP disguise, clown nose and all: the ultimate whore for trickle down monies that go no further than Congress.  Just as I have mentally boycotted two advertisers who pulled their ads for the Muslim reality TV show, I will remind myself to never set foot again in the State of Kentucky.

8 small western states, with less than a third of
California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger
margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry
(1,235,659).

Now presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest
population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are
non-competitive in presidential elections. 6
regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and
SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT,
ME, and DC) in presidential elections. When and where
votes don’t matter, candidates ignore those areas and
the issues they care about most.
     
Support for a national popular vote is strong in
every smallest state surveyed in recent polls among
Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as
well as every demographic group.  Support in smaller
states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK -70%, DC -76%, DE
—75%, ID -77%, ME - 77%, MT- 72%,  NE - 74%, NH-
-69%, NE - 72%, NM - 76%, RI - 74%,  SD- 71%, UT-
70%, VT - 75%, WV- 81%,  and WY- 69%.
     
In the lowest population states, the National Popular
Vote bill has passed in nine state legislative
chambers, and been enacted by three jurisdictions.

The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not
require states to allow their citizens to vote for
president, much less award all their electoral votes
based upon the vote of their citizens.

The presidential election system we have today is not
in the Constitution. State-by-state winner-take-all
laws to award Electoral College votes, were
eventually enacted by states, using their exclusive
power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the
Constitution. Now our current system can be changed
by state laws again.
 
Unable to agree on any particular method for
selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers
left the choice of method exclusively to the states
in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution—
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the
Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors
. . .”  The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly
characterized the authority of the state legislatures
over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as
“plenary” and “exclusive.”

The constitution does not prohibit any of the methods
that were debated and rejected.  Indeed, a majority
of the states appointed their presidential electors
using two of the rejected methods in the nation’s
first presidential election in 1789 (i.e.,
appointment by the legislature and by the governor
and his cabinet).  Presidential electors were
appointed by state legislatures for almost a century.
     
Neither of the two most important features of the
current system of electing the President (namely,
universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-
take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution.
Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went
back to their states to organize the nation’s first
presidential election.

In 1789, in the nation’s first election, the people
had no vote for President in most states, only men
who owned a substantial amount of property could
vote, and only three states used the state-by-state
winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.

The current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method
(i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to
the candidate who receives the most popular votes in
a particular state) is not entitled to any special
deference based on history or the historical meaning
of the words in the U.S. Constitution. It is not
mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the debates of
the Constitutional Convention, or the Federalist
Papers. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers
make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur
to the winner-take-all method.
 
The constitutional wording does not encourage,
discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any
particular method for awarding the state’s electoral
votes.
 
As a result of changes in state laws enacted since
1789, the people have the right to vote for
presidential electors in 100% of the states, there
are no property requirements for voting in any state,
and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used
by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and frequently
have, changed their method of awarding electoral
votes over the years.

With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system
of awarding electoral votes, it could only take winning
a bare plurality of popular votes in the 11 most
populous states, containing 56% of the population of
the United States, for a candidate to win the
Presidency—that is, a mere 26% of the nation’s
votes.

The Founding Fathers chose the Electoral College process to prevent larger, more populous states from swamping the smaller, sparcely populated states.
http://uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/INFORMATION/electcollege_history.php

Or, as the adage goes: a better democracy than two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner.

They were 200 years ahead of spin-artists like Sirota.

If we can’t get together and form a United Front, pulling all our pro-democracy NGOs, churches and civic organizations (including local governments) together to stop this seditious plundering of one-person-one-vote democracy, we don’t deserve to be a democracy.

It’s futile to talk about democracy when the government is being run by two crime
syndicates.  If the electorate stops giving them their votes, maybe then we can talk about democracy again.

The McConnell madness should disenfranchise Kentucky voters first before being applied broadly.