[phailhaus]

The bigger problem is that the EC is a winner-takes-all system. If California has 55 EV's, and Candidate A wins by 1%, why do they get all 55 votes? Nearly half the state voted for Candidate B! I have found that the debate on the EC has been over a false dichotomy: either have the EC, or have a popular vote. What about distributing electoral votes based on percentage?

[nerfhammer]

A state can choose to allow this on its own. A couple do: Nebraska and Maine.

[sgnelson]

but even this still has issues. Such as, what are the electors based off of, state wide popular vote? What about rounding, up or down? Each congressional district (for states with more than 1 congressional district, and how about the other 2 electoral votes? At-large, a hybrid approach, what else?), Some predetermined electoral districting? etc.

And even with that question answered, this doesn't necessarily fix the problem, as it's still quite easy to have the electoral college votes not match the popular vote. So what's the real point of the modern electoral college? It just makes for a more complex, less precise, less democratic system overall.

[phailhaus]

Perhaps there is no point to the modern electoral college. With a little research, it turns out that the point of the electoral college was to act as a check against a demagogue that could manipulate the citizenry, and to ensure that "that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications." Oh, the irony...The EC was meant to be un-democratic, to keep someone like Trump from getting power.

When electors are bound to their vote as they are today, the electoral college seems to exist in order to give a greater voice to more rural states, to keep them from being forgotten. But then the opposite occurs: winner-takes-all means that candidates have little incentive to campaign in "safe" states and the entire election hinges on just a few.