I think the Electoral College need changing to election by popular vote for the president of the United State . Because under the electoral college system, voters vote not for the president, but for a slate of electors, who in turn elect the president. If you lived in Texas, for instance, and wanted to vote for Kerry, you'd vote for a slate of 34 Democratic electors pledged to Kerry. On the off-chance that those electors won the statewide election, they would go to Congress and Kerry would get 34 electoral votes.

The single best argument against the electoral college is what we might call the disaster factor. The American people should consider themselves lucky that the 2000 fiaso was the biggest election crisis in a century; the system allows for much worse. Consider that state legislatures are technically responsible for picking electors, and that those electors could always defy the will of the people. The election would be thrown to the House of Representatives, where state delegations vote on the president. Because each state casts only one vote, the single representative from Wyoming, representing 500,000 voters, would have as much say as the 55 representatives from California, who represent 35 million voters. Given that many voters vote one party for president and another for Congress, the House's selection can hardly be expected to reflect the will of the people.

The electoral college is unfair to voters. because of the winner-take-all system in each state, candidates don't spend time in state they know they have no chance of winning, focusing only on the tight races in the " swing" state. During the 2000 campaign, seventeen states didn't see the candidates at all, including Rhode Island and South Carolina, and voters in 25 of the largest media markets didn't get to see a single campaign ad. If anyoune has a good argument for putting the fate of the presidency in hands of a few swing voters in Ohio, they have yet to make it. The electoral college is unfair, outdated, and irrational. The best arguments in favor of it are mostly assertions without much basis in reality.