But given that no electoral system is neutral, we might think about whether a national popular vote would leave unrepresented voices that should be heard in national policymaking. This leads to a third point. The electoral college strengthens the two-party system. This is not an unalloyed good, as adherents of the Nader and Buchanan candidacies will affirm. But given our separated system, governance requires that bridges be built across the chasms dividing the branches.
Parties provide one means of doing that.
Moving instead to a national popular election would undercut those parties and encourage the formation of splinter groups, weakening governmental accountability and legitimacy rather than enhancing it. The likely result is disillusionment on the one hand, and a weakened president on the other. Some have proposed modifying the electoral college to make it reflect the winning candidate of given Congressional districts or the proportion of votes within states candidates receive. But this might only make things worse. Under the current system, the electoral and popular votes diverged just once in the 20th century.