Is there any plausible argument in favor of the electoral college?

[Badger]

In answer to the thread's question, no. It's an anti-democratic anachronism. The 2000 Florida fiasco shows that a close contested vote count can be just as contested and devisive whether nationwise or confined to a single state. The electoral college effectively limits campaigning to the approx. 1/3 of the country that live in swing states, rendering votes in the remaining states essentially meaningless.

Scrap it.

[Badger]

We should leave it as is just because it's more interesting.  And to conservatives who fear "big cities determining the election" just look at Obama's campaign in 2008, which was about maximizing votes in big cities and telling rural areas to screw off.

Oh yeah, Vermont screwed off by a margin of negative 37 points.

Obviously VT is still a Republican state that votes Democratic simply to spite them for their hatred of the real, rural America.

Along with almost all of Wisconsin outside the Milwaukee suburbs, the eastern half of Iowa, most of central and NW MI plus the UP, northern Minnesota, all of rural New England (other than that one county in Maine), Big chunks of rural New Mexico, the Texas border counties......