Dear Senator,

While it is unfair, the Electoral College should still be used. There are some problems with the way it works, but it would still be easier than having presidential elections by popular vote.

One of the reasons why the Electoral College should still be used is the certainty of the outcome. A dispute over the outcome of an Electoral College vote is possible - it happened in 2000 - but it's less likely than a dispute over the popular vote. The reason is that the winning candidate's share of the Electoral College invariably exceeds their share of the popular vote. Because almost all states award electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis, even a state creates a landslide electoral-vote victory in that state. A tie in the nationwide electoral vote is possible because the total number of votes - 538 - is an even number, but it is highly unlikely.

Secondly, the Electoral College restores some of the weight in the political balance that large states (by population) lose by the virtue of the mal-apportionment of the Senate decreed in the Constitution. So, other things being equal, a large state gets more attention from presidential candidates in a campaign than a small state does. The Electoral College also avoids the problem of elections in which no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast. There is pressure for run-off elections when no candidate wins a majority of the votes cast; that pressure, which would greatly complicate the presidential election process, is reduced by the Electoral College, which invariably produces a clear winner.

At the most basic level, however, the Electoral College is unfair to voters. Because of the winner-take-all system in each state, candidates don't spend time in states they know they have no chance of winning, focusing only on the tight races in the "swing" states.

Aside from it being a little unfair, the Electoral College does its best to elect a President, which is why it should still be kept.