[Dalewyn]

>And yes, the vote for the president is not a raw popular vote. There is a level of indirection through another body that often does, but may not, yield the same result as a popular vote would.

The Electoral College does, in fact, always reflect the popular vote: The popular votes of each respective state.

Critics of the Electoral College fall flat and demonstrate their sheer ignorance because they keep trying to apply the nationwide popular vote when the election for President was never about that.

To explain in more detail for the uninitiated:

A state's Electoral College votes are determined by the state's popular vote, with the winner taking all (except for Oklahoma and Maine which split their EC votes proportionally).

The Electoral College itself is a facsimile of Congress: There are 538 electors because there are 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, and an extra EC-only 2 Senators plus 1 Representative for Washington, D.C..

The Electoral College exists as a means to tally up each state's political will for President in a way that weighs each state's political power appropriately and keep Legislative influence out of an election concerning the Executive. Congress (aka the Legislative) only gets involved in the election if and only if the Electoral College fails to do its job.

Constructive criticism is always welcome, but there are reasons why things are done the way they are. The least anyone can do in the process of criticizing is first understand and respect what they are criticizing.

[kthejoker2]

> that weighs each state's political power appropriately

Define "appropriately" in the context of Wyoming and California.

Also explain what happens if only a single person votes for the same candidate in the 41 states and special districts wth the least EC representation,and 100% of the people in the remaining states vote for the other candidate.

The Electoral College is a hugely flawed mechanism both in terms of reflecting the will of the people vs the will of arbitrary land boundaries, and the actual division of "political power" due to forcing everything to round to the nearest integer and setting a (completely arbitrary) cap on the number of EC votes.

[Dalewyn]

>Define "appropriately" in the context of Wyoming and California.

Appropriately as defined by the Constitution:

* Each state gets Representatives allocated to them according to population, with a minimum of 1 Representative, for proportional representation in the Lower House.

* Each state gets two Senators, for equal representation in the Upper House.

The number of Representatives used to increase on a semi-regular basis as population nationwide increased, but it has now been set to 435 Representatives due to physical constraints of fitting so many Representatives in one room.

The Senate currently has 100 seats to account for the 50 states currently in the union; the seats will increase or decrease anytime the number of states change.

Washington, D.C.'s presence in the Electoral College is a special case. D.C. does not have any representation in neither Houses of Congress because it is not a state, but the EC represents D.C. voters by allocating to it the equivalent number of Senators and Representatives as the smallest state in the union.

This means that, ironically to your arguments, the Electoral College is more representative than Congress because D.C. voters are represented.

>Also explain what happens if only a single person votes for the same candidate in the 41 states and special districts wth the least EC representation,and 100% of the people in the remaining states vote for the other candidate.

If the 41 states plus D.C. have more EC votes than the remaining 9 states, then the winner is whoever garnered those votes. Remember, the President is elected by and represents the states as a collective; the President does not represent the people directly, the people are represented directly by their state's Governor.

A nationwide popular vote removes power from the states, because it means one state's people can unilaterally override the people of another state. The USA is a federation of states, so that is simply not acceptable. Each state is sovereign and each state's will must be represented, so far the best compromise has been re-using Congressional seat appropriations which is something all states agree to work with.

>The Electoral College is a hugely flawed mechanism both in terms of reflecting the will of the people vs the will of arbitrary land boundaries, and the actual division of "political power" due to forcing everything to round to the nearest integer and setting a (completely arbitrary) cap on the number of EC votes.

The Electoral College reflects the will of the people of a given state, because remember: A state's EC votes are determined by the state's popular vote. Just because it doesn't reflect your will ("nationwide popular vote") does not make the Electoral College a "hugely flawed" system. In fact, with regards to working in a country comprising a federation of states, it works marvelously at bringing every state's opinions together.