it was put into place by the Founders as a safety valve in case the unwashed masses made a big mistake by popularly electing a person whom the ruling class felt was unfit to serve. It gave the elites a way to step in and overturn the sentiment of the people.

What's ironic is that today, it's the elites - ie: rich Rs - who seem the most-annoyed with the EC.

because you are not voting for president/vice president. You are voting for electors for the electoral college who will meet later to vote for president and vice president.

So in the end, it's pretty much the same.

Your 29 votes are diluted by 19 million voters, or one per 655,000 voters. The Wyoming population of half a million divided by its 3 electoral votes gives them one per 166,000 people, or about three times the representative power of yours.

I get the op's point, that a democratic vote in Florida is worth more to democrats than a democratic vote in Wyoming. That's pragmatic. But I think about it in terms of votes not being equal between different states because of the electoral college system. We don't have equal inputs.

As a Floridian, you get one electoral vote for ever 654,000 residents. Your Wyoming counterpart gets 3 electoral votes for his states 564,000 residents. Thus, while your state's voites count more in the EC than Wyoming's, your vote actually counts less, since your state gets significantly fewer electoral votes per person.

Since Florida and Wyoming each send two senators to Washington?

In 2008, Florida had 8.3 million voters and 27 electoral votes. Wyoming had 248,000 voters and 3 electoral votes.

So in 2008 a vote in Florida actually had slightly more than one quarter the weight of a vote in Wyoming.

The Electoral College disproportionately favors the Western Red States and needs to be abolished.

Either way you look at it, it stinks.

And yes, if President Obama manages to win re-election via an electoral vote technicality, I'll gladly accept the result, but I'd still advocate for abolishing the thing in the future. It never seemed fair or practical to me.

past time to get rid of the Senate too? Same situation.

I look at them as two very different things.
When the Constitution was written information was either letters, face-to-face or perhaps newspapers.
Times have changed. Instant information age. Education for almost everyone.

The people are the country, so the power should rest with them.

Representative democracy and the legislative process comes into play regarding Senators.

Whereas with the electoral college, it's just unnecessary hurdles thrown in the way of what should be direct democracy and the elective process.

a general one (when they conflict).

So the EC would likely survive an Equal Protection challenge.

Then the election of the president goes to the House, where each state gets 1 vote. The 35,000,000 Californians have just as much say as the 500,000 Wyomingites.

No matter which candidate wins, a large minority, or occasionally a majority, goes unrepresented.

There are several workable (and working) alternative systems, but our irrational deification of this seriously flawed system keeps it going.

The Wyoming vote counts much more than yours!

Wyoming: 400,000/3 = 133,333 pop. per electoral vote.

Florida: 18,801,310/29 = 648,321 pop. per electoral vote.

Wyoming vote is worth 5 (4.8) times a Florida vote!

On senators, even more obvious:

Wyoming: 200,000 people per senator.

Florida: 9.4 million people per senator.

Wyoming vote is worth FORTY-SEVEN times a Florida vote.

If we were preparing a legal suit we'd have to find precise Census counts of eligible electorate and registered voters and show the figures for those, but obviously they'd be similar outcomes.