The Electoral College

I have often wondered why we elect Presidents through the Electoral College. The Electoral College began as compromise between the founding fathers to elect the President by Congress or by popular vote. I think this made perfect sense at the time taking into consideration how time consuming and tedious a popular vote would have been at the time and electing the President by Congress doesn't seem very democratic. The people of the United States vote for electors who then in turn vote for the President. There are actually some states who do not legally require that the electors vote for the candidate of their states popular vote. Scary. Each state is allocated electors based on their number of U.S. Senators (2) and U.S. Representatives. Of course, our representation is determined by U.S. Census. So, don't hide from the Census next time they come around (every ten years) which should be soon!

I wonder why, in 2008, we cannot go to a nationwide system of popular vote. The Electoral College was a brilliant solution at the start of our nation but now, we live in the computer age. We could very easily tabulate votes and elect a President by popular vote. I know, some will say that this would be dangerous because of security issues and someone hacking in to change the election but we already have these problems. I know that it would be costly as well but if it gets more Americans to the polls because they feel their vote actually counts, let's do it. Also, why have any chance that some goofy elector may decide on their own to vote for someone other than the candidate of choice for their state? I realize this probably would never happen and there are actually some things in place to help prevent it but at the end of the day, people feel their votes don't really count. Elect by popular vote!