[pdonis]

> the solution to both of these is to abandon the Electoral College

This would certainly benefit the Democrats, but I don't see it as a "solution". It would give states without large urban areas even less political leverage than they have now. Presidential campaigns would not even bother visiting most states, since locking up enough votes in large urban areas (all of which are solidly Democratic) would be sufficient to win the election all by itself.

The purpose of the Electoral College was to prevent a slim 51% majority of the country from running roughshod over the rest. It is serving that purpose.

[blululu]

This gets into complicated issue in American Federalism about how do reasonably curtail democratic voting. Yes the basic idea of the Electoral college is to ensure a broad consensus and representation of the entire country. However if you look at how elections are actually run in the modern age, you see that the entire focus is on winning a handful of swing states (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania). California and Texas are only relevant for fundraising, no body ever bothers to campaign in Wyoming, Utah or Massachusetts. Essentially both parties are trying to game the system and appeal a very small subset of the electorate (swing state voters are far less than 49% of the populace). While there are benefits to something like the electoral college, the demographics have changed a lot in the last 240 years and we should honestly consider whether it is achieving its purpose.

[pmiller2]

> The purpose of the Electoral College was to prevent a slim 51% majority of the country from running roughshod over the rest. It is serving that purpose.

At that it succeeded. Instead, we have a minority running roughshod over the majority. Trump was elected with 46.1% of the vote to Clinton's 48.2%.

[pdonis]

> Instead, we have a minority running roughshod over the majority.

No, we have government that is more limited in what it can do because of lack of consensus between different parts of it (the President, Senate, and House). Which is exactly what should happen if the country is closely divided.

> Trump was elected with 46.1% of the vote to Clinton's 48.2%.

Which indicates that neither side has a majority, let alone enough of a majority to justify running roughshod over everyone else (which IMO is a lot more of a majority than just 51%).