Founders' choice: the electoral college

It's widely criticized, but it's part of our Constitution's philosophy — carefully crafted as a compromise between competing interests to guarantee checks and balances.

The electoral college is one of the most controversial and ridiculed parts of the Constitution. It is not just for the obvious reasons — the "wrong winner" elections of 1876, 1888 and 2000. The college has also focused the nation's attention on a few swing states, allowing candidates to ignore a large percentage of the voters in their campaign. Today, the three largest states get little attention, except as ATMs for campaign fundraising.

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