Asklemmy

The main benefit is that it allows us to change how we vote for President over time without requiring a Constitutional amendment every time. This is because the states themselves can decide how they select electors, and can try out different voting systems without requiring permission from the federal government.

For example, there is currently an agreement between states that, if they get enough states to agree for a majority of electoral votes, they will all switch to using the national popular vote as their only criterion. So we can switch to that system with less than half the states, rather than requiring 3/4 of them to approve an amendment. And of we decide we hate the system later, we can switch back, again without an amendment.

Your vote does not count!

This may sound cynical, but in my experience with it, 100 people are a lot easier to bribe than 230 million.

E: see, the people vote, and the EC are supposed to vote for what their state's people vote for. But, as free citizens, they're allowed to vote for who they want. So, we may get into situations, where the popular vote in a state was for A, but the EC vote was for B. The EC are supposed to represent their state, but should also be allowed to vote for the candidate they think is best (like the other citizens). IMO, it should be a point system. Each state gets the points of the EC count they currently have. The state's popular vote decides the candidate that gets the points of the state. The EC is disolved. Done. This allows the popular vote to win, while still maintaining the original reason for the EC (rural states have less people, but now have as much of a voting power as urban states, when compared to popular votes alone).

In general, complicated electoral policies help maintain the status quo and a disconnect between the people and the state. It makes the people always think that things are bad because they didn't use the system right. Come on guys we need more voters. Come on guys we need to focus on swing States. Actually guys we need to vote in Congress too. Guys we also need local elections. Omg guys, we forgot about the supreme court!!

Rather than revolting against your government, you will always be presented with another route forward that won't take you there.

Makes it easier for the establishment to control the outcome.

It's a decent idea that's been devastatingly crippled. We could fix almost all the problems with it by doing two things: unbinding electors, and uncapping the House. If more states moved to a proportional system, that would help, too.

The thing is... to forbid states to bind their electors (binding means the elector is not free to choose their vote for President, but must vote as dictated by state law) or to force states to choose electors proportionally, is beyond the power of the federal government. It would be better for everyone if states did this on their own, of course, but they can't be forced to do so.

Uncapping the House is desirable both in itself (for greater, and more granular, representation in Congress) and would also make the EC more representative by allowing more electors to populous states, without diminishing the representation of less populous states. But making the EC more democratic, without the check that unbound electors provide, could be dangerous, pushing the country further towards populism.

The main benefit is that it pushes a lot of issues to a more fault tolerant system.

Technically, the election of President was not supposed to be decided by the people. Only two state legislatures devolved the authority to choose the Electors in the Electoral College to a vote when Washington was elected. All states voted for the President after the Civil War, but the layout wasn't even.

In its current state, the Electoral College provides a fire break between the different states in how they vote. The states are supposed to run all elections, which may have impacts on who gets elected.

The system becomes easy enough for a lawyer to understand

The "popular vote" is also not a perfect system. When there are a majority of rural voters in area, and those voters are poorly educated, they come up with some interesting choices of town mayors, who then have no clue how to actually run a town council and provide services (not inside the US but just saying, no political system seems to be perfect).