This shit has to go.

However, many other delegates were adamant that there be an indirect way of electing the president to provide a buffer against what Thomas Jefferson called “well-meaning, but uninformed people.”

How disappointed he would be to see his idea for protecting against decisions being made by the uninformed masses having been so subverted by the very system he supported.

It's not just the electoral college. The US was the first big modern democracy, and all the democracies that have sprung up since took one look at its structure and said "nah". This includes democracies the US directly helped setup in their current form, such as Germany, Japan, and Iraq. Nobody wants to replicate that structure, including the US.

States as semi-sovereign entities rather than administrative zones? Nope. Every state gets two reps in the upper legislative branch? Nope. Those two reps plus at least one lower legislative rep means that the smallest state gets at least three votes in the Electoral College? What madness is that? Even the executive being separate from the head of the legislative branch is uncommon everywhere else.

Parliamentary systems, where the Prime Minister is both head of the legislative branch and the executive, are more common. Some of these split some of the duties of the executive off into a President, but that President isn't as singularly powerful as the US President. The US idea that the different branches would have checks and balances against each other was rendered pointless the moment the first political parties were developed.

Pretend democracy

The Electoral College is outdated and should be dissolved. Another problem in the USA, the wealthy are admired and considered heroes. In the EU, nobody trusts the bastards and people will strike. I believe the French are the best when they disagree with their leaders and upper class because they would drag out the guillotine.

The only reason we have it is because Republicans know that if we got rid of it, they'd never win the white house again without overhauling the whole party.

See Also: Why Puerto Rico and Washington DC are not states

The title should probably specify "for a presidential election". France uses an electoral college for its Sénat, it's made of regional/departmental elected people.

And they won't let go of it because the Electoral College keeps the wealthy in power.

Do you think if the electoral college was banned that criminals would give up theirs? Wake up, the only thing that stops a bad guy with an electoral college is a good guy with an electoral college!

Something something healthcare is a right elsewhere too something something

We can and should do better.

what other country ever did?

Are there many other countries locked in a two party system?

It's not a national election, but in Hong Kong, a 1,500-member Beijing-controlled electoral college elects the Chief Executive of Hong Kong and controls nearly half of the legislature.

Republicans are all anti college until you're talking the electoral one.

It is wild to have your state's vote almost predetermined before you cast it.

It all goes back to the negotiation at the start of the country: "We want to vote" vs. "We don't want those people to vote"

This isn't news. I mean, even if it is just now true, the United States being a "Democratic Republic" that promised citizens the vote and then kept a body who basically sat around to subvert the popular vote when things got close was largely considered to be another aspect of the USA's rather f****d up interpretation of "freedom".

USA! USA!

Look, I really do love my country. As unfashionable as that sometimes seems on the left. But it ain't perfect. There are a lot of things that need worked on. Our healthcare situation is subpar. Our labor protections - bleh. Same for consumer protections. There are lots of things we could do to study other models and try to bring them here (except for the regressives here that hold everything back, that is).

But one of the very worst is our Electoral College and the way the House is capped. The Senate system should get an overhaul, too. Two Senators from every state, no matter how many people live there? The EC was a slavery era thing and should be abolished, but the Senate thing should get an overhaul as well. I don't know the kinds of populations the 13 colonies had, but I doubt there was anything like the magnitude of California/Texas/Florida/New York/PA/etc vs. Wyoming. Maybe the makeup of states should get reconsidered if we cannot change the number of Senators - maybe split up California into smaller states, maybe combine some of the flyover states that have almost no one in them...

Would it be much of an issue if we insisted presidential powers were limited to what they were when the Constitution came into force? Today's presidents (both parties) greatly exceed the powers of Washington and Jefferson.