Alot of people who defend the electoral college say that it encourages presidential candidates to campaign all over the US rather than a few states, that npv is "tyranny of the majority", or that a national popular vote would be "direct democracy". Allow me to show you why those arguments are BS.
First we must understand why the ec was created. It was created primarily because the founders feared that direct presidential elections would lead to candidates
winning the election by just making promises. Where have I seen that before? Also, our senatorial and gubernatorial elections don't have an ec, it's just a simple popular vote; no one seems to be complaining. The second reason it was created was to protect small states. This was proposed particularly to give the slave states an advantage by counting 3/5 of the slaves for congressional redistribution. The last reason was because a few hundred votes was simply easier to count than several million back then. You see, information traveled a lot slower back then and it took days if not weeks to reach DC. Nowadays, information reaches someone from the other side of the planet within a second. Now without further adue, let's get into why the EC is a bad system.
1. the EC keeps the election from being consolidated down to a few states.
The below map utterly debunks that argument:
By now, it is no secret that almost the entire election takes place in just 10 states which collectively add up to just 28% of America's population. Sure an unexpecting state or two might flip rarely but Florida and Ohio will always be swing states and California, Texas, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, Alabama, Louisiana, and Washington are all safe states with zero chance of flipping. You see, the main problem with the current system isn't that it's possible for a candidate to win with less votes than another candidate, it's that all the campaigning is concentrated in a few states. Ironically, not only does our system not prevent it from being just a few states, it causes it.
2. it protects small states
:lamo
Ok I'm sorry but do you know how many campaign events were held in all of the states with a smaller population than New Hampshire? ZERO
3. popular vote is tyranny of the majority
If that's so, then why do we use this system to elect governors and senators?
In fact, our current system might be "tyranny of the majority". Allow me to explain. 4 million voters in California turned out for Donald trump; this is roughly equal to the amount of eligible voters in Colorado, the latter is worth 9 electoral votes. Those 4 million votes amounted to nothing because the democrats in CA drowned them out and the winner take all system treats it as if every voter in CA turned out for Clinton.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_California,_2016
This map of Illinois shows the state actually being quite conservative but Chicago keeps that from happening:
View attachment 67210861
New York would be swing state if it weren't for New York City
View attachment 67210862
In Illinois and New York, we see the voters of most of the state nullified by the voters in the big city, but in Texas, Tennessee, and Indiana, it's the other way around with Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Memphis, Nashville, and Indianapolis all voting in majority for Clinton. Yet, their votes do not matter as the men of the countryside have cast their votes for Trump.
4. pop vote would condense the election down to the big cities.
While it is true that most of the population lives in a select few counties, we actually have a pop vote, there's just 56 of them (including DC and the districts of Maine and Nebraska). When campaigning in Ohio, do candidates campaign everywhere in the state or just Cleveland and Columbus? If the answer is the former then why do you think that would change if it was only 1 popular vote instead of 56? If it's the latter then how is our current system any better than popular vote?
5. it's "direct democracy"
changing how the president is elected does not change the fact that the US is a representative republic