Pros and Cons of Leaving the Electoral College?

[Slander and/or Libel]

Question to the pro-EC voices: if it's such a good system, why do no other countries use it? Why do no states use state-level versions of it?

[Slander and/or Libel]

D) Sure, many states get ignored, but it might be better if a candidate spends more time in Florida than Kansas. Also, how would candidates know where to campaign with no Electoral College?

More states would get ignored under a straight popular vote. Both sides would just rally their respective population centers in that case. With the EV, any competitive state could be the difference in a close election.

Question to the pro-EC voices: if it's such a good system, why do no other countries use it? Why do no states use state-level versions of it?

That's an irrelevant question to me. A lot of countries or just a few countries having a certain policy doesn't make the policy good or bad. That's just argument ad populi.

It's not dispositive, but it's hardly irrelevant. The fact that no other countries use it is at least evidence that none have found it to be worth implementing after watching it in use here. That alone doesn't make it good or bad policy, but it should give us pause.

[Slander and/or Libel]

EC is an outdated 18th century electoral system. America must move out of the 18th century and into the 21st century.

But the way I see it the UK is equivalent to the EC if every state used individual districts to award electors and no +2 bonus for winning the state. Parliamentary systems don't directly elect the PM but indirectly elect by awarding the office to the winner of a majority of districts. Should the UK move "into the 21st century" and have a direct election of the PM independent of the MPs?

Is there a reason we should assume a system with more offices directly elected to be a more advanced one somehow?

[Slander and/or Libel]

EC is an outdated 18th century electoral system. America must move out of the 18th century and into the 21st century.

But the way I see it the UK is equivalent to the EC if every state used individual districts to award electors and no +2 bonus for winning the state. Parliamentary systems don't directly elect the PM but indirectly elect by awarding the office to the winner of a majority of districts. Should the UK move "into the 21st century" and have a direct election of the PM independent of the MPs?

Is there a reason we should assume a system with more offices directly elected to be a more advanced one somehow?

I wouldn't make that assumption since the result at the extreme is a situation like IL with 7000 units of government, most of them filled by direct election.

It just seemed like your question presumed that a system where the PM is directly elected as opposed to elected by a majority of the MPs would be closer to the 21st century, which I read as more advanced. It's not necessarily clear to me why that would be.

I was just having a talk with a friend about this, and about how FPTP tends to militate toward a two party equilibrium. He has much more of an understanding of British politics than I do, and was telling me that while there are more than two viable parties in the UK, they more or less tend to operate in geographical zones where only two of those parties are viable. If the PM were directly elected, it seems as though it would place a heavy incentive on all of those regions to align their party structure with the national one, since that office is winner take all.