Electoral College or Popular Vote?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

When the Constitution was adopted, the standards of who could vote varied widely among the 13 states, even without considering the impact of slavery. Indeed, some states had different requirements to be a voter for different parts of their local government, which is why the Constitution specifies that the electors for the House (and later the Senate as well) are to have the same qualifications as "the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures".

The differences in who qualifies to be a voter are far narrower than they were, but unless eliminated, some form of electoral college seems advisable.  The main tweak I'd make is to delink the size of the college from the size of the Congress.  1 elector per 50,000 with the incorporated territories getting to vote if they can meet that minimum as well seems like a good figure.  That would range from California with 677 electors down to the Virgin Islands with 2.  (American Samoa and the Northern Marianas are not incorporated territories, so with the lack of birthright citizenship, I doubt either has 50K US citizens as they barely have 50K people.)

Requiring proportional election and/or election by district wouldn't be a problem for me.  (For example, California could elect 12 Electors from each CD plus another 41 Statewide.)

Such a system preserves the benefits of the electoral college in balancing out the disparities in voter eligibility and making any needed recounts be over a smaller number of ballots while being less distorted by differences in persons per Elector.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

In a close election, allocating the EVs proportionally by vote within each state actually tends to tilt things slightly towards the Republicans (relative to their showing in the popular vote), since they tend to do a bit better in smaller states, which have a bigger proportional bonus in the EC with the +2 EVs for senators.

For example, I think if you allocated the 2000 EVs by popular vote in each state, then Bush wins the electoral college more decisively (without the need for a recount), despite losing the popular vote nationwide.

Wrong. While you're right Bush would get more EVs, he only gets a plurality. By one. And it's thrown to the House:
   G   B   N
AL   4   5
AK   1   2
AZ   4   4
AR   3   3
CA   29   23   2   
CO   3   4   1
CT   5   3
DE   2   1
DC   3
FL   12   12   1   
GA   6   7
HI   2   2
ID   1   3
IL   12   9    1
IN   5   7
IA   4   3
KS   2   4
KY   3   5
LA   4   5
ME   2   2
MD   6   4
MA   7   4   1
MI   9   8   1
MN   5   5
MS   3   4
MO   5   6
MT   1   2
NE   2   3
NV   2   2
NH   2   2
NJ   8   6   1
NM   3   2
NY   20   12   1
NC   6   8
ND   1   2
OH   10   10   1
OK   3   5
OR   3   3   1
PA   12   11
RI   3   1
SC   3   5
SD   1   2
TN   5   6
TX   12   19   1
UT   1   4
VT   2   1
VA   6   7
WA   6   5
WV   2   3
WI   5   5   1
WY   1   2
   262   263   13
   48.7   48.9   2.4

Gore would lose anyway Imagine the congress appointing Bush, that would be so unfair! And the Republicans would be crashed in the next mid-term election

Assuming party-line votes, this is how the House election would have gone.  (I'm guessing Sanders would have voted for Nader, but who knows?)

Bush: 28
AL AK AZ CO DE FL GA ID IN IA
KS KY LA MO MT NE NH NM NC OH
OK PA SC SD TN UT VA WY
Gore: 18
AR CA HI ME MD MA MI MN MS NJ
NY ND OR RI TX WA WV WI
Nader: 1
VT
Abstain: 3
CT IL NV

With the Senate tied 50-50, it would have been unable to elect a Vice President until Jeffords switched parties, and Lieberman would be elected.

If Jeffords was willing to switch before January 20, Bush likely would have found a place for Cheney in his cabinet, most likely as Secretary of Defense again or perhaps National Security Adviser.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I don't mind the electoral college too much, but I think that all states should use the Maine / Nebraska method. As a matter of interest, has there been any serious attempt to introduce that anywhere else?

Noooooooooo!

If the undemocratic ME/NE method had been adopted in each state Obama might not have won the 2008 presidential election.
Take a look at Indiana and North Carolina, each of which he won:
Indiana would have given him 3 EV and 6 EV to McCain.
In North Carolina Obama would have received 6 EV, compared to McCain's 7 EV.

A proportional allocation of the electoral votes could be a good compromise.

The calculation's been done, and while I don't recall the exact results, Obama would have still won under he Maine/Nebraska method.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

If the electoral votes are allocated proportionally at a nationwide level

What conceivable reason would one have to allocate electoral votes in any manner on a national level? The only way that even begins to make any sort of sense would be if instead of meeting in each State and voting once, the electors met together to choose a President and Vice President by a majority vote, and Congress was cut out of the process entirely.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Most states don't have counties of uniform enough population for that to be viable.  The selection of electors would presumably be subject to the same one-man/one-vote limitations as other offices are subject to (assuming that the State legislature chooses to have the electors selected by the people).

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

In other words, he's proposing something akin to the old system of directly electing the electors, with voters able to choose which electors to support.  I think the last time that affected the outcome of a State was in 1960 where the voters of Alabama chose 5 electors pledged to Kennedy and Johnson and 6 unpledged electors who ended up voting for Harry Byrd Sr. of Virginia and Strom Thurmond.  So in Wyoming you'd have 3 votes to pick 3 electors and in California you'd have 55 votes to pick 55 electors.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Why bother with this inneficient distribution of delegates state-by-state? Just go with the popular vote with no redistribution, the election goes nationwide!

Because voter registration and thus voter registration requirements, are handled by the States.  That doesn't matter as much as it once did since the only significant differences these days are over the voting rights of felons and ex-felons, but there were considerably more differences back when the constitution was originally adopted.  Still, unless we went to a federal voter registration system, I think we would need to keep some form of the electoral college, tho not necessarily one tied to the number of Representatives and Senators.  (Indeed, as a first baby step of reform, I'd favor dropping the Electors tied to Senators.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Electoral College is a relic of the 18th Century.

It should be abolished with all due haste.

Is "all due haste" faster or slower than "all deliberate speed"?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

There are any number of ways to apportion power in an election.  For example:  Each state gets one electoral vote. 

Would the electoral college defenders support that apportionment of power?  If not, why not? 

Or, what if a state elected their governor based on a county based electoral college?  Would that be a good idea because it preserved the power of small counties?

Obviously, those ideas are ridiculous for the same reason that the electoral college is ridiculous. 
The President is today truly the leader of the entire country.  There is no principled reason to give Delaware and Wyoming greater power in deciding their President.  The only reason is a desire to protect your narrow political interest or a belief in tradition for tradition's sake. 

State lines often have some historical and cultural significance. County lines are much more artificial, usually aligning with parallels of latitude or meridians of longitude. 

Maybe out west they do, but while we have some straight lines in the county borders of South Carolina, few if any, of them are lines of latitude or longitude, dude.

(I just like saying "longitude, dude".  I'm not usually quite that informal.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Do you call Michigan "out west"?

Is not Michigan in the Midwest?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Do you call Michigan "out west"?

Is not Michigan in the Midwest?

Culturally, Michigan is closer to upstate New York  than to any other part of America except perhaps Wisconsin

West is a direction, not a culture.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The line between Colorado and the pair of Nebraska and Kansas was put there for a pretty good reason involving cultural differences. On one side you had the nice farmers that had gotten there thanks to the Homestead Act and were of a pretty moralistic Protestant background. In what became Colorado, on the other hand, you had society's underbelly in a sense: wild miners that founded the towns you see in cowboy movies, blah blah blah, and that line officially separated the two.

Yes and no.  First off that line was established before the Homestead Act.  Second, the line was chosen as a northward extension of the eastern border of New Mexico Territory.  However, it did indeed have the effect of separating the miners of Pike's Peak from the Jayhawkers of Kansas.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I think directly electing the President with a Popular Vote and Instant Run-off Voting system would be better than the Electoral College. The main problem that the Electoral College was meant to address is now less of a problem and small states still have clout with the Senate.

You really think that things would be better if Congress itself elected the President rather than have the shadow Congress known as the Electoral College do it?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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.

That's only true if you have a two candidate race.  I dare say that in 1860, Abraham Lincoln, a candidate with only regional appeal, won the Presidency only because of the Electoral College.  Had we had the popular vote with a runoff, Stephen Douglas and not Lincoln would have been our 16th President.  We still would have had a Johnson as our 17th President, but it would have been Herschel instead of Andrew.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Sometimes I wonder, what if each state or region were to choose its own Presidential candidate?

The Whigs tried that in 1836 to disastrous effect.