I do not live in the United States, but it seems to me that Americans need to reform the outdated electoral system. Why do we need Electoral College if you can just count the total number of votes like in other countries? I read that there were cases when more Americans voted for the losing candidate, but more Electoral College votes.
If there are US residents in this thread, please explain why Electoral College is better than direct voting
Before I start, I am not politics major, nor would I consider myself highly political, so these are my best recollections of what I was taught some 35+ years ago.
We would only need to reform the electoral system if we wanted to change from the democratic republic to a democracy. The way the US government is set up is to balance the rights of the people with the rights of the states. As the federal government was always supposed to be really small, and sticking to the enumerated "powers" it was granted (but got corrupted and grew over time), the states were supposed to be the ones with the majority of the power within their own borders. We didn't want a large populous state (like say California) or a small group of highly populous states being able to overpower the voice of the smaller rural states. That is why the house (or representatives) is appointed a number of representatives for each state based on it's population, but representation in the senate is only 2 per state. To pass a law, not only then must it be the popular choice by population, but it must also be the popular choice by number of accepting states.
The electoral college then, is made up of 1 vote per house representative and 1 vote per senate representative. That then makes it a shared/balanced vote between the will of the population and the will of the states. That is how our president is elected, and how we keep smaller more rural states from having their voices silenced by the larger more urban states. That arrangement is also why many of the smaller/rural states joined the union in the first place.
