Another potential idea:

Let people elect cabinet members.

The Electoral College (or the Electors as they were called in 1788) was created for a reason and with one exception has functioned as intended. When George Washington won his first term there was no popular vote. Between the time the last state ratified the Constitution and its mandated Election Day it was logistically impossible to set one up.

After the Kaiser was deposed the constitution created in Weimar was modeled on the U. S. Constitution but modified to remove what were considered inefficiencies. The Electors was one of them. In the 1932 election Hindenburg failed to win a 51% or better popular vote count, so a run-off was held between him and the second place finisher Adolph Hitler. While Hindenburg managed to get the votes needed to win that one Hitler's share of the popular vote was much greater than what he garnered in the first election. As a result he got the appointment to Chancellor. Hindenburg wasn't in favor of it but reluctantly conceded noone else in the Reichstag had the support to do the job. Hindenburg didn't want to run in '32 due to his age but considered it the lesser of two evils compared to Hitler becoming President. One year later Hindenburg was dead and Hitler was Fuhrer.

I don’t believe the electoral college is inherently bad, but it is outdated. The two-party system has given us defective candidates for a generation, if not more, and that is the real reason we’re so divided. With only two choices of any real possibility, we end up with a terrible “us vs. them” situation. Political parties are not inherent in our governmental process. They are not mentioned in the Constitution. We can do netter, but we won’t.

But to answer the question, let’s note that electors are populated by both the number of representatives and the number of senators in each state. That means that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the electors and representatives in each state, plus two. Each district should elect their individual elector, and each state should elect two state-wide electors. The “winner take all” situation we have today causes terrible imbalance.

I think the EC should be abolished, the popular vote should determine who is elected. Third Parties should be included in debates and the Media should discuss who they are and where they stand on the issues. If the only candidates that get elected are in the duopoly parties, that causes many people not to vote.

ALL good points but with a constitutional amendment needed to do away with the EC, it isn't going to happen.

How do I despise the Electoral College, let me count the ways...

1️⃣ EC stole my vote for president. I live in Tennessee. Elections are always 60/40.

2️⃣EC maps make us all talk in Republican talking points. Red states this, blue states that. We are really one big purple cow.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

I meant purple nation.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

3️⃣Cattle, groundhogs and prairie dogs don't vote.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

I despise the EC for the same reason: It completely negates voters even in slightly lopsided states.

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Man, that's a great counterpoint to those who claim Trump won so many rural counties.

Very nice!

Moo!

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Is that Devin's cow?

It's the cow from the cover of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother.

Oh. It looked like Devin's. My mistake.

The college Allows for minority rule. This is a Republic in the form of a Democracy minority rule is incongruent with this. The office of the president is the only federal elected office not given a straight up majority vote.

I like the EC, as it avoids domination of a large country by densely populated cities. We've had these discussions in depth in the past and I still see no compelling reason to change. I'd rather avoid a tyranny of the majority, disagreeing that a so called tyranny of a minority exists.

The USA remains a country of vast opportunities and options. Right mix of capitalism and socialism. I remain wary of the latter, knowing a good socioeconomic outcome is possible with the right education, family decisions, career management, and money decisions.

It is in big cities I see this being contested. It's no small factor why I won't support direct popular vote in some contexts. So overall I'm happy with the structure of US politics...taking issue with extreme partisan and identity policies that the grass roots are equally guilty of fostering as elites they parrot.

The EC is only set incorrectly.
The Apportionment act of 1929, and The Method of Equal Proportion need review.
and technological solutions must meet the needs of the third millennium, not the 1940's.

I've quoted it before and I quote it again. The Economist, 2018:

July 2018: American democracy’s built-in bias towards rural Republicans -- Its elections no longer convert the popular will into control of government

“EVERY system for converting votes into power has its flaws. Britain suffers from an over-mighty executive; Italy from chronically weak government; Israel from small, domineering factions. America, however, is plagued by the only democratic vice more troubling than the tyranny of the majority: tyranny of the minority.

This has come about because of a growing division between rural and urban voters. The electoral system the Founders devised, and which their successors elaborated, gives rural voters more clout than urban ones. When the parties stood for both city and country that bias affected them both. But the Republican Party has become disproportionately rural and the Democratic Party disproportionately urban. That means a red vote is worth more than a blue one.

The bias is deepening. Every president who took office in the 20th century did so having won the popular vote. In two of the five elections for 21st-century presidents, the minority won the electoral college. By having elected politicians appoint federal judges, the American system embeds this rural bias in the courts as well. If Brett Kavanaugh, whom President Donald Trump nominated this week, joins the Supreme Court, a conservative court established by a president and Senate who were elected with less than half the two-party vote may end up litigating the fairness of the voting system.

This bias is a dangerous new twist in the tribalism and political dysfunction that is poisoning politics in Washington. Americans often say such partisanship is bad for their country (and that the other lot should mend their ways). The Founding Fathers would have agreed. George Washington warned that ‘the alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge…is itself a frightful despotism’.”

The main problem in my opinion, is the limited number of reps.

American democracy’s built-in bias towards rural Republicans

Aka: America's built in bias to avoid tyranny of the majority.

I fixed it.

😛

If we have to have a tyranny at all, which I do not want, I prefer a tyranny of the current majority of Americans over the corrupt, radical right, pro-tyranny minority.

Tyranny meant different things North and South.
England was tyrannical to Anti-Federalists who feared that a Federal government could also become tyrannical. Anti-Federalists, like Jefferson, were slave owners, who saw England's efforts to end slavery as tyranny.

The Founders built the EC to be inherently anti-democratic, which is what it is. They had to do that to get small states that didn't want a union to reluctantly agree to the new Constitution. The small states feared the power of big states. And, some states didn't really want a new constitution at all, preferring instead to amend the old Articles of Confederation.

Long ago, the radical right realized that the EC could be a tool to facilitate the rise of a tyranny of the minority. They focused heavily and diligently of exploiting that weakness in American democracy's defenses. That is why the radicalized, authoritarian Republican Party has passed and is passing dozens of laws to suppress pro-democracy votes (roughly, Democratic and minority voter votes) and to rig and overthrow elections that Republicans lose.

no.
The EC was the only way to conduct an election across a vast seaboard nation at a time when the only communication was by horse, ship, or foot.

My understanding differs.

You think they could communicate a vote from backwoods to DC. ...
This was before DC the capitol was in Philadelphia.

Until Thomas Payne, even Washington thought we were going to need a King.
The EC was an attempt to give a voice to the people.

But how?
They had no way of counting votes from North Carolina and etc. across 13 colonies in a manner timely enough to insure regular elections, even COULD exist.

It was all based on ideas of Voltaire, and Locke, and Smith, and other philosophers of The Enlightenment. Our constitution, governance by consent of the governed is an evolutionary step in human governance. Franklin warned us that it will be hard to hold on to.

My understanding is based on the book The Framer's Coup: The Making of the US Constitution, by historian Mike Klarman. https://dispol.blogspot.com...

My understanding comes from a lifetime of reading and speaking to historians.
Also from my Father who practiced law, and both my parents were avid historians.

And also common sense.
Nobody expected to have an elected president.
How could The People participate in a day and age, when the colonies were not connected by any road?

Tell me.
No modern communication, and a broad seaboard nation.
How are you going to introduce candidates and collect votes on a regular basis?

Just tell me how to have an election in the 18th century, with only communication by hand carry.?
how.?

It took two days to announce on July 4h that The Constitution had been ratified on July 2.
That was only an announcement.
How would they conduct an election.
How would they even announce The Candidates?

That’s how I see it too.

Interesting arguments belong except that it is all a moot point. Whatever we want, we won't get. We are stuck with the EC.
Just as we are stuck with no age limit to run for Congress or President. SO, if it is what it is, how do we work around that?
Public engagement rather than partisan slagging. Stronger voter registration methods and outreach to disenfranchised voters. Building a network of volunteers to carry your party's message to areas where the message is not reaching (rural, intercity, poor areas).
Also appealing to voters with a message OTHER THAN vote for me because I am better than the other guy. Remember, the 2020 election results were more an anti-Trump than a pro-Biden vote. I have argued this till I am blue in the face on Germaine's channel.
Democrats need to focus less on what the other side is selling and more, much more, on what the Dems are selling.
More suggestions? More open primaries. No more kowtowing to "establishment" politicians, but bringing in fresh ideas and fresh faces. It worked for the Dems with Obama, didn't it???????
Changing the EC requires a constitutional amendment that would never fly anyways.
Lastly, when other countries attempt to impose unpopular policies on the public, there are massive protests and even riots. WE on the other hand, wring our hands, claim something isn't fair, protest mildy (except for those who stormed the Capitol and that was really a protest), pontificate, and sit on our butts. Whatever happened to the marches we had that helped end the Vietnam war? We have become lazy and don't want to do the work. The hard work! We instead moan online about how unfair things are.

We need only review two laws.
1929 Apportionment Act
1941 Method of equal proportion.

If we each were our own EC rep, we would have direct democracy.

Follow up: Look at what BLM accomplished with their riots. They created a national discussion around policing. Sure, it is still FAR from perfect and still a long way to go before we get serious policing reform, but it started the conversation, it started demands by the public for more accountability in policing, where many departments now make body cams mandatory. In other countries, dissatisfaction with a government policy has cause national strikes. When was the last time the U.S. had a national strike? Imagine every black person NOT showing up for work, or in the case of abortion rights, every woman NOT showing up for work.
Damn, this thread has got me ranting now. Sorry about that. But I really am sick n tired of complaining but not actually doing anything to change the narrative.

Rant over.

Yes.

and if there were more districts,
more voices would have a chance to be heard ...
politically and BEFORE protests and police are even needed.

The electoral college system is a mess, has always been a mess and will always be a mess. No president selected by that system rather than the popular vote has ever been anything but a corrupt, divisive jerk.

The EC is what the founders were talking about when they told us to form a more perfect union.

Like a simulation.
The EC is supposed to match the popular vote.
The way to do that is to collect more data points (ie more reps)

Double the number of reps means half the potency of a gerrymandered district
and twice the difficulty in setting it up.

EC can be improved.
Just as weather forecasting of the '50s
has improved through computer simulation.

The EC was a bargain made because the smaller states thought the bigger states would steamroll them, and because the South, being a nest of filthy slavers, wanted to include their slaves as people for the purpose of voting, but to regard them otherwise as property. It led, eventually, to the Civil War.

After.
That was after.

First you decide to have an election.
Then, All the small states, say, "Hey! Wait a minute!"
And all the slave states say, "Hey! Wait a minute!"

and all those details get hammered out.
But go back to Thomas Payne.
He was arguing that we didn't need a King.!

Selecting a King would have been easier, and traditional, and everyone expected it!

If you are going to take advantage of The Enlightenment.
and Jefferson was the last man who thought someone could collect "All the books" in a library.
The Enlightenment URGED Franklin, Madison, and Jefferson, to concoct some means of including the voice of The People.

Well, I wouldn't say they are all jerks. Beholden to special interests maybe. Often dishonest. But do you really consider Biden a "jerk?"

Biden won popular vote *and* the EC. I think Alex is talking about “W” and Trump.

And I agree the EC is not going anywhere. Foxes (the powers that be) rarely give up their henhouses (their lock on their state or even districts, in the case of the House) willingly.

Do you know how we pick EC reps today?
and what they are supposed to do?

If we used them as intended,
It would probably be the end of the two party system.

I wouldn't want to go there in one big step.
evolve is better than revolve.

Biden won the popular vote. The only presidents who won via the EC rather than the popular vote in our lifetimes were Bush Junior and Trump. Before that, the last one was Rutherford Hayes, who was put in through a devil's deal that ended reconstruction (and rights for Black Americans) in the South in 1876..

Oh, just seeing this. Sorry for jumping the gun.

I stand corrected, you DID say the jerks are the ones who won the EC but not the popular vote.

No biggie. I sometimes put too many subordinate clauses into a sentence and folks nod off before reading the next one ! :)

The EC has always seemed to me to be a weak link, the most vulnerable to subterfuge and undermining.

The EC is an institution intentionally eroded and presented to be obsolete.
Of course concentrated power concerns will want to present it as pathetic.

EC could be "more perfect"
It could represent US All better.

Much of the US political system was crafted by plutocrats in order to pull the rug out from under populist movements. The Electoral College is just one of a number of dysfunctional institutions that the US could do without.

Much of the US political system was crafted by William Penn.
Jefferson referred to Penn's government when writing The Constitution.
That's why it is a sacred document, inspired by God.

Much of the Constitution was inspired by the structure of ancient Rome. Members of the constitutional convention had little else to use as an example. In Rome, plutocrats formed the Senate and the hoi polloi had their tribunate, much like the House.

Penn was friends with The Indians, The Iroquois Nation. Some of their ides also went into the mix.