Yes, it would be great if every eligible citizen could (and actually would) vote.
Good luck to Mr Gillum, getting Florida residents back onto the voter rolls.

It was fun listening to former RNC chairman Michael Steele defend the electoral college as a "great compromise". I agree that it was a compromise. With the slave states.

Michael Steele is a black man.

If you’ve already guessed that both of Nebraska’s Republican senators, Ben Sasse and Deb Fischer, have cruelly and hypocritically voted against disaster relief in the past because helping other Americans is communism and not their problem, then sadly you’d be right. They can eat shit.

Rain and cold are back?

Oh thank god, I can stop being so sad.

You know, global warming and all.

The GOP keeps screaming that we can't afford to take serious Climate Action. Each of the extreme weather disasters we've had in the last 5 years have cost billions, and they're getting more frequent and more destructive, can the GOP tell us how many more of these catastrophies we can afford? What about the people whose lives are lost? The homes and businiesses and infrastructure destroyed? How long before insurance companies refuse to insure people in the hurricane, tornato and wildfire-prone areas? Before the Federal Flood Insurance and disaster relief programs go bankrupt?

*businesses

*Tornadoes

Ugh, need sleep

@2: It was a compromise for the rural states. Although the electoral college had an impact with slave states, slavery had nothing to do with its inception. It had to do with giving rural voters a say: "the fact that ordinary Americans across a vast continent would lack sufficient information to choose directly and intelligently among leading presidential candidates." But, coupled with the 3/5 vote for each slave, it had its desirability by the slave states:

http://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/

"Now, Nebraskans are grappling with what the waters left behind: destroyed infrastructure. Roads have been destroyed, bridges have been toppled, and all that's certain is that the recovery process is going to be long and expensive."

Whoa -- this is gonna call for another Massive Tax Cut -- oh and maybe another War. And, even though Canada's waaaay closer, Venezuela has Socialism. Too. And their speaker-of-the-house or whatever guy has declared hissself President. So, that's good enough for Trumpfy!

But, how the FUCK will THAT pay for fucked up Infrastructure, you foolishly ask. It won't! The Joke's on YOU, LIB!

HA!

@7 -- Need EDIT function.
AND deelcioouus sleeep.

Whatever the politics around the original constitution may have been, they are utterly irrelevant to the question "is the EC a good way to elect the President?". People talk about the "Founding Fathers" as if they were prophets or something. ugh.

I wish somebody would tell me what they worry would happen to the little states if we didn't have the EC. Like, what bad things are they actually imagining? The closest you ever get is some guy from North Dakota who seems to suggest that if there was a popular vote, candidates would never visit North Dakota. To which one can only say "...".

The whole thing is so transparent and exasperating. Nobody has the nerve to say "I like the EC because it favors my preferred outcomes". Well, I'll go ahead and say I favor abolishing it because that would favor my preferred outcome. But unlike the EC cheerleaders I also have basic principles of democracy on my side.

@11: See, the problem with the whole "change the rules so I can win" thing you are doing is that you are using the exact same arguments you demean as bankrupt.

Your justification is the "basic principles of democracy," but America was founded as a republic, so the people who would argue against you can just say different magic words: "I have the basic principles of a republic on my side."

It is not an argument. It is a self-serving slogan, a piece of bare sophistry, no matter who invokes it.

1, The Aussies exact an 'opt-out' fee. If you are a citizen, you must vote; however you may pay a fee and opt out if you like.

As noted in previous discussions about the EC, one of the more "simple" fixes is to increase the size of the House of Representatives.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/09/opinion/expanded-house-representatives-size.html

Here's a compromise:

Winner-take-all by congressional district. 1 Electoral Vote. Statewide winner takes the two Senatorial electoral votes.

@11 Those small states can only exist by leveraging massive federal subsidies. Their outsized electoral influence is a large part of that leverage.