Exactly, this is not "democracy". However, the USA is not a democracy, but a constitutional republic. Electing the POTUS via a national popular vote would be rife with more problems than it solves. This article does a good job explaining this topic. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/11/the-elector...
The US is a democracy. It is also a constitutional republic. There's no conflict between the terms.
The Heritage Foundation is smart enough to realise the EC favours Republicans and therefore the policies it promotes and so will spin anything to make that seems like a good idea, because the will of the people being enacted would work against their goals.
Finally, and more a reply to the parent comment, even a popular vote within a two-party system can be suboptimal in some ways and so be less than an ideal "democracy". Ranked choice voting or similar systems can stop "regulatory capture" of the two main parties from denying the voters a legitimate voice.
That doesn't make a lot of sense. How is a "democratic republic" not also a democracy? (Unless you define "democracy" to mean something else than its usual meaning, which is not "direct democracy".)
Granted we are in fact a constitutional republic, presidents and congress ranging Bush to Obama would have to stop the "make the world safe for democracy" rhetoric as a "meta-reason"(to make up a word) for going to war.
Politicians across the spectrum have either defrauded their people with "democracy" rhetoric, or accepted it as a de facto standard for the modern age. Which one of the two, I'm clearly not possessing of the answers.
That's a Heritage piece (republican think tank, and not even one with a particular philosophical lean: Heritage is a straight ticket republican mouthpiece) written in the days before the 2004 election when it looked like Bush was going to lose the popular vote again like he did in 2000. That's, like, the precise opposite of a measured review of the subject.
First: Yes, it does. Because it was presented as an "explanation" for problems with popular vote, and it's literally the opposite: it's an advocacy piece, and readers need to know that before clicking on the link.
Second: my response wasn't to Heritage, but to skirunman above, who didn't explain any of this stuff either. If you want to ding me for attacking the source, you need to cop to the fact that the whole subthread is an appeal to authority. And that authority is pretty suspect.
I don't tend to assume advertisements provide an unbiased review of a product. Also, I think pointing out submarine advertising tends to produce more informed consumers.
The Heritage Foundation is smart enough to realise the EC favours Republicans and therefore the policies it promotes and so will spin anything to make that seems like a good idea, because the will of the people being enacted would work against their goals.
Finally, and more a reply to the parent comment, even a popular vote within a two-party system can be suboptimal in some ways and so be less than an ideal "democracy". Ranked choice voting or similar systems can stop "regulatory capture" of the two main parties from denying the voters a legitimate voice.