re: #308 Hecuba’s daughter

That doesn’t completely work because it retains the evils of the Electoral College. It doesn’t address voter disenfranchisement; after all, a state that allowed only white male voters still has a population count that includes all citizens + non-citizens and therefore it would get that far more electoral votes than it should receive; i.e. the 3/5 compromise redux. Of course, in your scenario, it only kicks in if no one receives 50% of the vote, which alleviates the problem somewhat but Trump would still have won in 2016.

The problem is that the Constitution isn’t going to be amended to abolish the electoral college. But if states with at least 270 electoral votes pass the law awarding their electors to the popular vote winner, that solves the problem. We could also make our system more like a parliamentary system without amending the Constitution. If we incorporated proportional representation into congressional elections, and awarded electors proportionally rather than on a winner take all basis, Congress would end up selecting most Presidents, which I believe is what the founders thought was going to happen.