The Recognized Problem With The Electoral College

My last blog was on a history of the Electoral College with a rational explanation of why it appears to work for the United States.

Just a little background here on other countries that use an Electoral College from Wikipedia:

"In Italy the presidential electoral college is composed of the members of both houses of Parliament and three members elected by each of the regional assemblies. Other countries with electoral college systems include Burundi, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Myanmar, Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago and Vanuatu."

Besides Italy, do any of these other countries look like "thought leaders in democracy?"  Of course not.

When I hear people talk about the brilliance of our founding fathers, I have to question their thought process.  Let's see, we have a bunch of slave owners write a document over 228 years ago and NOTHING regarding the appropriate premise of that document has changed?  Really?

Let's clearly state why the Electoral College came about and not popular vote.    By William C. Kimberling, Deputy Director FEC National Clearinghouse on Election Administration.

"A third idea was to have the president elected by a direct popular vote. Direct election was rejected not because the Framers of the Constitution doubted public intelligence but rather because they feared that without sufficient information about candidates from outside their State, people would naturally vote for a "favorite son" from their own State or region. At worst, no president would emerge with a popular majority sufficient to govern the whole country. At best, the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones"

Can ANYONE state that in 2016 that we "lack sufficient information about candidates from outside their State" ?   Of course not.

We saw what happened in 2000 when Al Gore won the popular vote, but George W. Bush became President - an unmitigated disaster.  Millions of Americans (me included) expect these next four to eight years  with Trump to be much worse.   An anti-science, anti-data Republican inherits a VERY sound country and screws it up.  We have seen this movie before folks and it does not end well.  Yes, Hillary had her own set of problems, BUT, give me a typical self-serving politician WHO believes in science every day of the week versus these anti-science and anti-data Republicans.

Of course, it is nearly impossible to get rid of this boat anchor Electoral College, so the idea of one person - one vote is a statistical joke.  In 2016, countries around the globe, except for Trump's Russia, shake their heads in complete disbelief on what is going on in the United States of America.