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Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: The United States should base the elections solely on the popular vote.

The claim that the electoral college was set up to avoid populists winning elections may have been true, but it was set up in a time where political parties weren't a thing in the US and frankly, it also makes it seem like it was set up due to fear of the average person's stupidity. All the electoral college has done is allow populists *within* political parties to win elections. 

There is also the concern that if the electoral college was removed, candidates would only campaign in New York or California and disregard the rest of the nation, but what people don't realize is that this *already happens* but instead of highly populated states, it's swing states. Candidates spend majority of their resources campaigning in these swing states and they typically get to elect who the next president will be. Only in those states does everyones vote truly matter.

If the electoral college was abolished, this would actually make candidates campaign all over the country far more proportionately. Millions of republicans don't bother voting in California or New York because their vote essentially doesn't matter. Millions of democrats don't bother voting in Texas or Georgia because their vote also essentially does't matter. If the electoral college was gone, people who previously didn't vote in these "for sure" states would have an actual reason to vote, this will cause candidates to campaign in states that they previously wouldn't even bother with and not only focus on a select few swing states. Voter turn out would also increase dramatically. In turn, the president that actually gets elected is far more representative of the people. States are a lot more "purple" than people think.

And probably the most important reason is that the electoral college allows for the less popular candidate to win presidency. There has never been a president that lost the popular vote that was well received by the public, **there is a reason they LOST the popular vote**. Majority of the time, the popular vote typically aligns with the electoral vote anyways, so it won't be such a major change. Only now the hiccup of when the less popular candidate wins will be eliminated.
gpt
The whole point of EC, is that you vote for electors - not for President. The assumption was that the populous was too stupid, too busy, and too uninformed to make a decision about the Presidency, and that they would vote for a local town elder, who would then go to Washington DC and meet the candidates and decide on their behalf.

Under EC, there shouldn't even be a popular vote, and people shouldn't be voting for President indirectly through electors - but rather directly voting for electors who then make the decision on behalf of their community (not unlike how Congress works). 

It is the fact that we have essentially abandoned this model, which is why EC looks so bad - because no one knows their electors, and no one has faith in their electors, because they have become merely in-betweens. The EC would make a lot more sense, if Presidents stopped directly appealing to the public, and Electors made a substantially bigger push on the local level. 

But as long as Presidents directly appeal to the people, and not to the electors - yeah, we probably should just switch to popular vote.