There is a new move promoted by the Campaign for a National Popular Vote to end-run all the problems normally associated with abolishing the Electoral College. This is a state-by-state effort to instruct each state's electors to vote for whichever candidate gets the most popular votes nationwide. Look at 2004: A switch of 60,000 votes in Ohio would have thrown the entire election to John Kerry, despite the fact that George Bush was 3 million votes ahead nationwide.
The Campaign for a National Popular Vote has a dandy new approach. Instead of trying to amend the Constitution through a long process that can and will be stalled by small states, the campaign proposes a simpler, elegant solution. According to the Constitution, each state legislature can instruct its electors to cast their votes however the state decides, usually as winner-take-all for whichever candidate carries the state. But there is no reason a legislature cannot instruct its electors to vote for whomever wins the popular vote.
Democracy! What a concept! The states can do this one-by-one, subscribing to an interstate compact that would take effect when enough states join to elect the actual winner - a majority of the 538 electoral votes.
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