First, here is a great link so you can update yourself on what the Electoral College is, why it was started and it's purpose.

IMHO - It has out-lived it's purpose. With mass media I don't see any reason why the people of this country cannot make informed decisions and should not have to rely on a group of people that may or may not stay true to the candidate they were elected to support/vote for.

I suggest we go to a straight popular vote. Period. (Sure would have changed the last election wouldn't it )

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Mary

When I was in school, I was taught that we needed the electoral college to carry the votes because it so long to get anywhere by horseback. My husband says he was taught that the electoral college was created in case the voters made a bad choice.

I rather think that the reason my husband was given is closest to the truth.

It interferes with the popular vote. Let's get rid of it.

Here is an interesting article
Keep the Electoral College! [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]

"At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, some delegates wanted the popular vote to elect the president. Others argued that Congress should make the pick. The smaller, less populated states feared, correctly, that under either of those options they would be swallowed up or ignored by the larger, more populous states. The Electoral College represented not only a compromise to accommodate the concerns of the small states, but also a singular act of genius on the part of the Framers. They did not reject the notion of a truly "democratic" election; they affirmed, in fact, that a democratic election occurring in each state would largely decide each state's vote for president in the Electoral College. The institution serves as a pillar of our federal system of government, wherein the states—which created the central government in the first place—do not dissolve into an amorphous national mass but rather, retain a substantial identity and hence, a check on unbridled power in Washington.

Moreover, the fact that a candidate must win a majority in the Electoral College means that he cannot focus all his resources and attention on campaigning in only a few large states. He must fashion a truly national appeal, as opposed to a divisive regional one. That helps assure that the winner will enjoy an added measure of support and legitimacy that derives from a relatively broad base.

Thankfully, the question of abolishing the Electoral College is moot because the hurdles a constitutional amendment would have to jump to accomplish that end are simply too high. Too many small states would block it, as they have successfully done on numerous previous occasions. They understand that doing away with the Electoral College would shift the focus of presidential elections to a handful of large, populous states."

I don't understand that argument. If the vote is determined buy populatarity wouldn't each vote, regardless of where you live, count equally? For example if one presidental candidate received 10 million votes and one received 9 million, the one with 10 million would win - regardless of where the votes came from. What am I missing?

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Mary

According to the link
Keep the Electoral College! [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]
" If the popular vote decided the winner, we would still be bogged down in questionable recounts in dozens, if not hundreds, of counties across the country. The potential for mistakes and abuse would have been enormously compounded, and the cloud over the eventual winner would have been all the more dark and ominous. A narrow margin in the popular vote—narrow enough to be wiped out with a few vote-rigging recounts—cries out for a decisive conclusion, and that's what the Electoral College offers."

Some people think there would be more voter fraud, I also think the use of these "machines" to count votes is not a good idea. At the very least there should be a paper trail to follow-up which alot of states do not have.

My whole thing is ..it is in our Constitution for a reason. I do not think we ever outgrow the need for our principles laid out in the Constitution. It has served us well for a very long time..if we would just stick to it we would be in much better shape as a country.

Edit to add:
Really it is not that much different than how the Dem. and Rep. pick their candidates. You have a popular vote but it is the actual delegates that chose the candidate at the state conventions.

I was wondering what you, and I, were missing as well. Aside from the challenge of the changing the constitution, something I seldom advocate, here are some thoughts.

This is from Wiki
"It is possible to win the election by winning eleven states and disregarding the rest of the country." (I can tell you as a resident in one of the other 39 states, I would not be happy to find my vote didn't count and wasn't worth casting.)

"Proponents of the Electoral College argue that organizing votes by regions forces a candidate to seek popular support over a majority of the country."

"Far from decreasing the power of minority groups by depressing voter turnout, proponents argue that, by making the votes of a given state an all-or-nothing affair, minority groups can provide the critical edge that allows a candidate to win. This encourages candidates to court a wide variety of such minorities and special interests."

The rest is my take on some other points they mention.

They also mention the fact that the college is much better able to react to the death or incapacitation of a winner should this happen between the election and the swearing in. This is something I hate to think about but it's certainly a possibility and one that we need to have something in place to address it, should it happen and since the college is able to do that why change things.

Another point is that if there is a problem in the count, the area to be recounted is small compared to having to recount the entire country. Just look at the mess in Florida. Now imagine having to do that nation-wide

There is also the danger of an area where one party is dominant being able to "inflate" the vote counts. The college is a buffer from those votes having as much of an effect as they would with a direct vote. .

Here's the link. There is a lot more info in there of interest.
United States Electoral College - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you do a search for just electoral college it gives you a history of where it has been used. The idea is surprisingly old.