# The Electoral College of the United States Think of the Electoral College as a temporary Congress (sitting in a joint session) with one mandate: to elect the President of the United States. As it would be the case with a joint session of Congress, each state has the same number of Electoral College Electors as its number of Congressmen and its number of Senators. As such, the Electoral College has the same properties as Congress as per [[The Great Compromise of 1787]]: States with lesser populations are given disproportionate representation. In recent years the idea of disbanding the Electoral College and electing the President of the United States based only on the popular vote alone has gained a lot of popularity. The [[National Popular Vote Interstate Compact]] is the attempt that has come closest to fruition. ## Criticism Critics of the [[Electoral College]] tend to ignore the [[The Great Compromise of 1787]] and focus on the College being obsolete i.e. it was created before mass communications, when Electors had to go the D.C. on horseback. To quote DeAnna: "The fear that people will not have the information to judge the intentions of the candidates is no longer an issue." ## Argument for reform instead of abolishment While the masses are being educated by fake news, media literacy is low and populism is on the rise we need more representative and less direct democracy. The U.S. should be moving away from directly electing the President of the United States, which is the case now despite exceptions like Trump and Bush Jr., and more towards a system where the electorate elects representatives who elect the President (or the PM in Europe). In most of Europe this body is the Parliament. In the U.S. this should be the Electoral College, but unfortunately precedents have turned it into a rubber stamp body for voters. With populism on the rise I just don’t trust the voters to make good choices so I think we should move more towards a representative and not a direct system. Any major change in the electoral system in the U.S. is wishful thinking, but if I had a magic wand I’d keep the Electoral College and empower it to make independent choices. For example make the Electoral College elections happen before the candidates announce they’re running and abolish the primaries. But whatever you do, please don’t enable populism with concepts such as the popular vote. It’s a recipe for disaster.