I'm sick and tired of people complaining about the electoral college.
This video explains why it was chosen over a popular vote. The electoral college has been brown townysed by many different people throughout the years and there's a reason why we still use it for the presidential vote. It seems unavoidable that every election where it doesn't match the popular vote the people who voted for the "more popular" candidate get all riled up about it, determining to abolish the electoral college.
In this election alone, I know of many friends and families that decided against voting in the presidential election or voted third party because of how crappy both main party candidates were. I live in California so voting for the president is utterly useless. The popular vote each election is altered by the very existence of the electoral college itself, we can't really know what it would be if people went into voting with the mindset that the presidency was won via popular vote. For one, I think many more people would vote in the presidential election rather than just skip over that part of their ballot. Second, I think third parties would get far fewer votes, since people realize that each individual vote is really of great importance.
In my opinion, the ideal solution would be that every state uses the Congressional District Method to distribute electoral votes instead of making states all or nothing. This would also prevent candidates from simply campaigning in a few major cities where the majority of people live.
