Should we abolish the electoral college?

[muon2]

Is a parliamentary system undemocratic?

I ask this somewhat rhetorically, because the EC is designed in some ways to replace the parliamentary function of selecting the head of government (ie the prime minister). The Founders did not want a British-style parliament and explicitly separated the executive from legislative branches. Nonetheless, they still perceived a body that mirrored the legislature acting as a parliament to select the president - the Electoral College.

There is a second, mathematical consequence to the EC. Any system that aggregates votes into groups and assigns them a single value, then adds up the values of the groups will tend to magnify the difference in the outcome. This tends to make a winner much clearer. For example, if a congressional race were decided 53% to 46% we would say that it was a close race, and certainly lacked a mandate from the voters. If the same race were decided 68% to 32% then it would be considered a strong mandate for the winner. Those are exactly the percentages Obama won with in 2008, and the EC gives us the sense that he had a commanding win, something we would not feel if there was only the 53% to 46% margin.

The glitch in an EC system occurs when the overall margin between two candidates is extremely small. At that point statistical fluctuations in they way those votes are grouped can flip the election the other way. That was the case in 2000 as well as 1888 (1876 was arguably rigged, and 1824 went to the House in a four-way split between candidates.)

[muon2]

Yes (likes democracy)

By which I assume you mean direct democracy as opposed to parliamentary democracy.