Electoral College or Popular Vote?

[muon2]

I'm certainly not a proponent of the Electoral College, but I do prefer it to a popular vote.

My biggest concern with a popular vote is that campaigns would spent their energy predominantly on urban areas. I'm probably one of the few on here who can state that I've lived in rural areas my entire life, and I hate that we would likely be ignored. Even medium-sized cities that might usually see some attention, such as Charlotte, North Carolina, won't have any attention.

My compromise is transferring every state to a Nebraska/Maine-type system.

I think this would only be truly successful with neutrally drawn congressional districts. If one party controls a majority of states during redistricting there will always be accusations of bias in the EC for the decade.

[muon2]

Support it, though not as passionately as most.

Doing it by electoral district would be awful, unless non-partisan boundaries were created.

Would you support direct election of the Australian PM?

If there were non-partisan boundaries of Congress, would you then prefer the EC system?

[muon2]

The only reason why the electoral college even exists is because it is the status quo. If America had gained independence today, or in the last hundred years for that matter, we probably would have gone with the popular vote.

The electoral college does make elections more fun, but it ultimately serves no distinct purpose anymore (if it ever even did)

In part the original concerns that created the EC still exist today. It reflects the nature of the country as a union of sovereign states. It provides representation in the vote for the executive in proportion to the representation in Congress. It protects against a hugely popular candidate from a single large state or region winning over a candidate with broad appeal. In both its representation and protections it functions as a parliament would in a Westminster system while creating an executive who is independent from the legislature.