Same thing , different day

How I feel about it

I live in New York , my vote never counts

My button would read "TERM LIMITS FOR ALL" . Our founding Fathers never envisioned Career Politicians hanging around the House for decades , parasites living off the people and contributing nothing .

I'd support that.

His vote, assuming he votes red, would count even less if that happened.

It would count just the same as every other red vote and every other blue vote in the country.

One man, one vote. It’s how we run elections for every other office in the land other than President.

The Electoral College is a recipe for continued polarization, minority rule, ignoring vast chunks of voters (both liberal and conservative) because of where they live, giving certain states way more influence on our national politics than they should have, creating artificially close elections that could tear our country apart (could you even imagine if we had another 500-vote-in-one-state margin, Bush v. Gore situation in today’s extreme political climate?), and disastrous presidencies.

Yeah I said it. W. Bush & Trump: Both elected against the popular vote, and both also happen to be the easily worst two modern Presidents we’ve had. Hundreds of thousands died due to calamitous decisions by those two.

The Founders simply got it wrong when they established the Electoral College, just like they got it wrong when they counted slaves as 3/5 of a person (then denied them even the right to vote), didn’t give women the right to vote, left the election of U.S. Senators to state legislators rather than the people, etc. etc.

We fixed those other errors in our democratic design through constitutional Amendments, and it’s time to do so now with the EC.

Mark my words: Slavery was the ticking time bomb of the 19th century, and the Electoral College is the ticking time bomb of our time. Look around: an uncomfortable number of righties are literally calling for Civil War and the baseless idea that a bunch of Democratic votes were fabricated in certain cities in certain key states is why.

For this and other reasons, the 2020 election should be even more of a wake-up call in this respect than the 2000. If a sitting President can make a semi-serious bid at overturning even a decisive election like this one through filing a flurry of lawsuits and overtly pressuring minor officials in certain key states, then it is only a matter of time that such pressure tactics would work in an even closer election.

While the American constitution inspired countless others in the course of modern history, somehow none of those other countries saw fit to establish a comparable institution for electing national leaders where the popular vote loser can win.

A quaint tradition that makes for exciting cable TV on election night could be our national downfall.

/endrant.

The entire premise behind the Electoral College is that it ensures states have the same level of influence in choosing the president as they do running the country through Congress. Each state elects its representatives to Congress through a popular vote, and each state determines how it votes for President through a popular vote.

This ensures that no state is kept irrelevant in national affairs. While it is true that citizens of less populated states have two or three times the voting power of heavily populated states, people who make that claim always forget to tell you that heavily populated states still have more overall voting power because the high-powered vote/"normal" vote ratio is simply not high enough to actually change election results. What it does is lower the discrepancy enough to where a coalition of small states, who each determine how they want to vote in a popular election, can then stand up to a larger state, which in a popular vote would otherwise control presidential elections.

This is a problem, because it essentially allows population centers to rule forever at the expense of rural areas. Just look at election maps in every state: heavily populated areas vote for more centralized and sweeping policies and policymakers than less populated areas. Just look at New York: Most counties vote conservative, but the state is a foundation block of the Blue Wall because its cities outnumber the rural voters. This effectively means that the cities have a permanent monopoly on the vote, and voters there probably don't want or need the same policies that rural voters do. Is this really a fair system? I think not, and I don't see how implementing it on a national scale would help us any. You'd simply have half the country feeling marginalized.

Now, you raise valid points with regard to what Trump is doing to the election, but I don't think he's got the pull to sway judges any. Obama could have put us through the same nightmare if he wanted. We're seeing Trump's last desperate grabs at power, but not an erosion of our democratic-republic or its values.

I hope the power-grabbing ends with Trump but have learned enough over the past 4 years to believe that’s wishful thinking. First, Trump himself may not be through with us. He’s constitutionally eligible to run again and even if he doesn’t, could play kingmaker. He drove a higher pro-Republican turnout than any other Republican ever. He also inspired an even fiercer turnout against him, but the surge of Republican turnout still leaves him with a lot of power leaving office.

Second, I’ve seen far too many Republicans who ought to know better (example: Lindsay Graham, who won his election handily) go right along with it. In a hyperpartisan climate, a Party that lacks the ability to police its own is a major threat. A more competent and focused Trump-like figure in a closer election could totally follow the same path Trump road-mapped this time.

Last point which I’m not sure I mentioned above: The Electoral College drives voter apathy. People feel like their voices are heard less in an EC system than they would under a national popular vote. We saw it a couple times from giantsquonk right here. Apathy is bad for democracy and breeds contempt for the other side who are “overlords” in your state.