LogFAQs > #948362900

I don't like the idea of the Electoral College, as it is an outdated principle in our modern society, but getting rid of it is more nuanced than most people realize.

Why do we have an EC? There are two major reason, one practical to the times it was created and another a matter of inter-state compromises based on the difficulty of joined these independent states.

The practical reason is, performing a centralized national popular vote count until very recently would have been an impossible task, the technology and infrastructure just did not exist in a way you could manage this.

The second, and still somewhat relevant idea, revolves around State's rights and the general uneasiness of how much they trusted each other. By declaring a number of electors, every one knew and agreed to how much each other state could affect the vote. If each state is reporting there popular vote there becomes more opportunity for a state to desire to maybe add 10,000 votes or so to the candidate of their favor to try and tip the scales. Even if it didn't happen, the lack of an ability to validate the reported votes would have lead us to where we are today, but much sooner and at a time when States were much more powerful individual entities likely crumbling the Union.

This remains the central problem to getting rid of the EC, the States can't run the Presidential election if it is a popular vote. The US Government would have to take over how registration works and the process for voting. And at the same time the states still have to run their own elections for local and national representatives. Which likely means there are two sets of registration guidelines and potential different voting locations.

At the end of the day it will be a mess to undo the EC. It is possible and a thing that can be done, but it will take and overwhelming desire from the country to ever get it done.