Should the electoral college be abolished in favor of a national vote

Con's Contention One: The Electoral College increases deliberative democracy. How completely false! If anything the Electoral College decreases deliberative democracy because it is set up in a way where people have less power than the Government in deciding who is president. I don't understand how the Electoral College "encourages people to be more involved in the political process" if in the Electoral College, they have less power. Con provided no evidence to that statement. Con just placed quotes which could also be applied even more so to a National Vote since in a National Vote, the people would have more power. The National Vote would increase deliberate democracy. The Electoral College prevents the country from a completely fair democracy. The Electoral College is set up in a way that the country would operate more as an Elitist Republic. "National Popular Vote is a simple concept: whoever gets the most total votes of all cast throughout the United States—wins. Now, you might assume that this will never come to pass, in part because it is so hard to amend the constitution and get rid of the Electoral College. In fact, it turns out to be surprisingly easy. The kind of thing that would occur to a Silicon Valley pioneer—the computer scientist who among other inventions is credited with conceiving the scratch-off card (for lotteries and other contests). Koza and his cohorts have come up with a brilliant solution to the disenfranchisement that the Electoral College represents. It doesn’t even require a constitutional amendment. Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution gives each state legislature the right to decide how to appoint the state’s electors. So all it would take is for the legislatures of states representing a majority of electoral votes to pass laws binding their states to abide by the results of the national popular vote. That is, the candidate with the most popular votes nationwide would automatically be awarded all of the electoral votes from the consenting states. Once enough states–which, combined, control 270 electoral votes–sign on to this agreement, the Electoral College would, de facto, be overridden." http://whowhatwhy.com... In short that just means that the state electors have to abide by the national popular vote. The state electors would grant all of the electoral votes to the candidate with the most popular votes nationwide. This guarantees a fair popular vote. Con's Contention Two: The Electoral College protects against fraud. "National Popular Vote has argued that a direct election would reduce the likelihood of a close election and decrease the feasibility of fraud. They contend that the large nationwide pool of 122 million votes would make a close outcome much less likely than it is under the current system, in which the national winner may be determined by an extremely small vote margin in any one of the numerous statewide tallies." http://en.wikipedia.org... NPV would have much less chances of having a "close" election and recounts since with a national vote, there would be much larger pools of votes and fraud wouldn't affect the large pools as much. Con's Contention Three: The Electoral College prevents polarization "Supporters of the compact argue that under the current system, campaign focus – in terms of advertising spending, visits, and addressing of regional or state issues – is largely limited to the few swing states whose electoral outcomes are competitive, with politically "solid" states largely ignored. The maps to the right illustrate the amount spent on advertising and the number of visits to each state, relative to population, by the two major-party candidates in the last stretch of the 2004 presidential campaign. Supporters of the compact contend that a national popular vote would encourage candidates to campaign with equal effort for votes in competitive and non-competitive states alike." http://en.wikipedia.org... So, in a nutshell, the Electoral College already polarizes. A NPV would make it so that every vote count. "Presidential campaigns ignore 41 states because electoral votes are currently awarded to the candidate who gets the most popular votes within each separate state. Candidates, therefore, ignore states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind." http://www.usnews.com... In the Mitt Romney and Obama campaigns, they only focused on swing states, which are only nine states. That's about 80 % of Americans ignored. How is that a "fair" system? True that in a NPV bigger cities would be treated with more attention. But there is a much larger population in those areas, which means more Americans. The vote should put these people in importance because most Americans in the country are concentrated in large urban cities That means that large urban areas are what determines the majority of the public's opinions. In an NPV more states would be held in more importance because every vote counts. It wouldn't be polarization of the presidents only focusing on swing states (Which is about only 20 % of the country) Swing States do not conduct even half of the country's wishes. Just because they are at the "political center" doesn't mean that they represent America. That just means that they are politically moderate. What would be the most accurate reflection of what America wants is a popular vote! "The members of National Popular Vote say the Electoral College has created a system in which Presidential candidates focus all their energy on winning votes in swing states. Roe argued this doesn't only mean California voters, and voters in most other states, are ignored during elections. It has a real effect on national policy, and how a president does his job. Here's Roe's take, for instance, on the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.'President Obama didn't get boots on the ground, engaged, on the BP oil spill until oil washed ashore in Florida,' he said. 'Mississippi… Alabama? It was a tragedy, but it didn't warrant him being there. So, their policy making is driven by the Electoral College.'" http://www.kpbs.org... "Another political scientist, UC San Diego professor Thad Kousser, isn't sure a national popular vote for president is a good idea. He fears that having to fight for votes in every state, and in the country's largest media markets, would cause an enormous increase in the cost of a presidential campaign. 'That would put a premium on who could earn the most money, and that might be bad for democracy in the long run,' said Kousser. Roe disagreed. 'I don't know how somebody argues that it is more important that we spend less money talking to voters in 10 states than spending more and talking to voters in 50 states,' said Roe." http://www.kpbs.org... Swing states shouldn't decide the election The Electoral College shouldn't decide the electionThe PEOPLE should decide the election The PEOPLE should decides who runs this countryThe PEOPLE should count