The Founding Fathers rightfully feared foreign intervention in our elections, did not trust the whims of the masses and also needed to secure the support of the smaller states by assuring a balance to counter the larger states. The electoral system preserves that intent. As I said earlier in the thread, Democrats certainly didn’t have a concern over the electoral college when they won the White House.
The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes used by 2 states, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by states of winner-take-all or district winner laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The Constitution does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for how to award a state's electoral votes
". . . the Electoral College system provides ripe microtargeting grounds for foreign actors who intend to sabotage presidential elections via information and disinformation campaigns, as well as by hacking our voting infrastructure. One reason is that citizens in certain states simply have more voting power than citizens in other states, such as Texas and California. This makes it easier for malign outside forces to direct their efforts.
But what if the national popular vote determined the president instead of the Electoral College? No voter would be more electorally powerful than another. It would be more difficult for a foreign entity to sway many millions of voters scattered across the country than concentrated groups of tens of thousands of voters in just a few states. And it would be more difficult to tamper with voting systems on a nationwide basis than to hack into a handful of databases in crucial swing districts, which could alter an election’s outcome. " - Olsen & Haas
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/20/electoral-college-threat-national-security-215626
Because of our current winner-take-all-system of awarding electoral votes, our presidential elections are vulnerable to easy manipulation.
Princeton Election Consortium’s Sam Wang “Today’s Electoral College opens a giant security hole.”
Reed Hundt, former FCC Chairman, said, "A huge percentage of Americans are right in identifying that the current method of selecting the President makes our democracy vulnerable to foreign interference. Too few voters play too big a role in selecting the President. If the entire national popular vote chose the President it would be nearly impossible for bad actors to twist the thinking of millions of people and thwart the true will of the people."
Now, the Electoral College would not prevent a candidate winning in states with 270 electoral votes from being elected President of the United States
Now 48 states have winner-take-all state laws for awarding electoral votes.
2 award one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and two electoral votes statewide.
Neither method is mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.
The electors are and will be dedicated party activist supporters of the winning party’s candidate who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable rubberstamped votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.
The current system does not provide some kind of check on the "mobs."
Support for a national popular vote has been strong in every smallest state surveyed in polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group
Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in 9 state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions.
Now political clout comes from being among the handful of battleground states. 70-80% of states and voters are ignored by presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns.
State winner-take-all laws negate any simplistic mathematical equations about the relative power of states based on their number of residents per electoral vote. Small state math means absolutely nothing to presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, or to presidents once in office.
In the 25 smallest states in 2008, the Democratic and Republican popular vote was almost tied (9.9 million versus 9.8 million), as was the electoral vote (57 versus 58). They voted Republican or Democratic 12-13 in 2008 and 2012.
In 2012, 24 of the nation's 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined.
The 12 smallest states are totally ignored in presidential elections. These states are not ignored because they are small, but because they are not closely divided “battleground” states.
Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are non-competitive in presidential elections. 6 regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT, ME, and DC) in presidential elections.
Voters in states, of all sizes, that are reliably red or blue don't matter. Candidates ignore those states and the issues they care about most.
Now, a presidential candidate could lose despite winning 78%+ of the popular vote and 39 smaller states.