Is the electoral college an outdated institution?

Agreed, but first we need better educated Americans. Raise spending on schools, fund more kids to go to college. To have a popular vote, we must first have caring, educated individuals, otherwise madness ensues.

This seems like a big problem. While it is very rare that a person loses the presidential election while not getting at least a plurality of the vote, 4 times with two going to the House of Represenatives. The problem comes with voter apathy, which as you say comes into effect with the so called solid states. The effect that this could end up having is singnifenctly lowering the actual number of votes that a person gets in the states that they are going to lose. Thus due to the uncertainly of the actual vote of the people we can not be sure if the recent popular vote counts are truly representative. The problem with abonadoning the electoral college though is that it would force to the candidates to go to all of the states forcing both the decrease in time in each of the states and an increase in the amount of money needed to spend in a campaign. With already rising costs to run a campaign this could either alienate the public making it so that any hope of ever running is destoried in all but the richest of people, or even worse force the canidiates into the pocket of rich corporations. In the end the risk of this is too high in my mind to merit a change in the system, which couldn't be done until 2012 at the earliest anyways. With no huge flaws that are sure to effect the election I think its better to be safe then sorry.

I tend to agree and disagree to a large part of this argument. I see the merits of completely dumping the electoral system but at what cost? Both of these systems can be easily gamed and the one currently instituted is gamed based on exactly what neeru is stating: spending the most time in states that are essential to their ability to attain presidency. The electoral system doesn't accurately voice the individual American's vote if I live in a predominantly republican state and I am democratic.

What's wrong with a simple popular vote? It's too simple, there's minimal protection against ignorant Americans, the electoral college provides us this safety net to some extent. If you think it isn't possible to group up a bunch of people to create something silly then read this post on Jediism, relating to Star Wars, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jediism. I'll leave it to you to interpret the validity of this "faith." Do you want Darth Maul or Ms. South Carolina running your country due to ignorance. Through its satire, this video makes some very valid points and I encourage you to watch it (It'll make you laugh even if you don't quite make the connection, I mean to reference 1:00):


Basically, what I am calling for is a revamped system. I am not proposing one but we all make mistakes and we have all this information and knowledge, why not create an ungameable or at least a less gameable systematic way of voting? If we're going to institute or push for a new system at least spend your efforts creating one that makes more sense. I vote neither.

Couldn't agree more, the electoral college needs to go. It had its purpose at one time when the founders (specifically Federalists like Hamilton and Madison) were worried the uneducated public would be unable to vote for president in an intelligent manner, but it is way past its usefulness. Just like how we passed the 17th amendment to directly elect senators, we need to further democratize our process and do away with our antiquated electoral system.

Let the people decide.

Trust was one of the foundations in which government was made. We trusted this corporate body of overseers to direct and guide the states in their affairs.

Where voting is concerned, electoral college members are given as representatives of a district to vote in a general election that determines who wins the Presidency of the United States. This body is instructed to represent their voters, and nothing more. This instruction has been distorted to generalize upon the opinion of the entire state.

States like Maine are interpreting it correctly, where districts influence their own college member and not an entire state's roll of members.

I think that if we re-tool the system to something like how Maine uses, that the system can be made to more represent people than it is today.

To simply abolish the electoral college means that the media will control the voting population more than it ever has before, and elections will not be put into the perspective they were intended to be in.