system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: The electoral college has to go! The president should be elected by a simple voter majority. The process is archaic and susceptible to corruption.

I would be more ok with the opposition of who I voted for winning if the rest of the United States were the ones voting them into office. 


Politicians are by in large crooked men walking a crooked mile but if my fellow civilian saw some decency or competency in them then I'd accept it for the effective four years. 


But voting in people who lose the majority and still take office feels like I'm getting a mushroom stamp every time I walk to the mailbox. Why is this still a thing? 


The electoral college feels like a creepy shadow government highly susceptible to corruption. Hell, any time you leave a huge decision up to a select few rather than the greater whole the chances for corruption (not to mention means and opportunity) ramp up to 11.


Ok I'm done, tear it up.
gpt
>The electoral college feels like a creepy shadow government highly susceptible to corruption. 

During the 2016 election there were 7 faithless electors--Clinton lost five pledged electors and Trump lost two. As a result, Colin Powell received three votes and John Kasich, Bernie Sanders, Faith Spotted Eagle, and Ron Paul each received one vote. 2016 was the first election *in over 100 years* during which there was a concerted effort by multiple electors to change the outcome of the election as outlined in Hamilton's *Federalist Papers*. The entire point of the electors is to provide a mechanism through which sane individuals can fix an election outcome just like the 2016 election. And yet, despite intense public pressure and the opportunity to test Hamilton's vision for the institution, the electors mostly voted in accordance with their pledges.

So this idea that they're corrupt or susceptible to pressure is not borne out by reality.

The real problem with the electoral college is that the votes are not equally dispersed. So, voters in low population states have their votes count as much as 4x as much as voters from more populous states. And most states have "all-or-nothing" rules for electoral college votes, so a difference of a single vote swings all of a state's EC votes to one candidate or the other. Because of this, a person could theoretically become President with just 22% of the popular vote.

But there are also problems with a national popular vote for President. By eliminating the need to campaign to different types of people in different states with different concerns, smart candidates will do a national campaign that mostly courts Californians, Texans, and Floridians. And in the case of a close vote, you won't be spending a few million taxpayer dollars in three or four contested counties in Florida or Ohio--instead you're paying for a national recount.