George Will on the Electoral College

In a recent column, George Will notes (among other things in its favor) the following good reason for keeping the Electoral College:

Those who demand direct popular election of the president should be advised that this is what we have -- in 51 jurisdictions (the states and the District of Columbia). And the electoral vote system quarantines electoral disputes. Imagine the 1960 election under direct popular election: John Kennedy's popular vote margin over Richard Nixon was just 118,574. If all 68,838,219 popular votes had been poured into a single national bucket, there would have been powerful incentives to challenge the results in many of the nation's 170,000 precincts. [bold added]

Add this to the fact that this system preserves individual voting power, ensures that a candidate with broad appeal wins, and underscores the legitimacy of the winner -- and the case for abolishing it seems quite weak.

-- CAV