According to the New York Times, one movement to abolish (circumvent, actually) the Electoral College is gaining momentum:
Dr. Koza’s compact, if approved by enough legislatures, would commit a state’s electors to vote for the candidate who wins the most national votes, even if the candidate loses in that state.
Robert Hardaway, a professor of law at the University of Denver who wrote “The Electoral College and the Constitution: The Case for Preserving Federalism” (1994), has counted 704 efforts to change or abolish the Electoral College. Most, he said, were ill advised, including this one.
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“It’s legal, but it would be a terrible idea,” Professor Hardaway said. “Look at the trauma the country went through having a recount in Florida. Suppose what would happen, in the face of a close national election, if we had to have a recount in every little hamlet.
I’ll have to agree with Professor Hardaway on this one. If we’re going to have citizens directly electing the President (as opposed to more parlimentarian procedure of having Congress elect the President), there ought to be a buffer between the popular vote and the actual result of the election, to smooth over any roughness raised by the challenges in counting votes.
Of course, another solution to address that need would be to finally figure out how to reliably, accurately, and fairly conduct elections and count votes, but sadly, that seems to be something our elected officials and bureaucrats seem incapable of solving.
However, with that misgiving aside, I do have to tip my hat to Dr. Koza, for having come up with a creative way to solve what he sees to be a problem in our government.