The Election Was In Reality Closer Than One Might Think Due To The Electoral College.
According to Item 3 in the FairVote Newsletter, the election of Barack Obama was closer than one would think. Although CNN reports a vote count giving Senator Obama a majority of approximately 8.5 million votes, a shift of less than 400,000 votes (total), per the FairVote Newsletter, divided over seven states would have given Senator McCain an Electoral College victory of 273. In other words, Senator Obama could have had an approximate eight million vote advantage and still have lost the Presidency.
The Electoral College Simply Doesn't Work The Way It Should.
An American Presidential election should involve all the people. But according to FairVote, most of the post-convention campaigning (99%) occurred in 17 states. This, of course, is due to some states being swing or battleground states and the rest being safe or spectator states. I believe that FairVote and the National Popular Vote Compact project have excellent information (see their book, Every Vote Equalonline) but the wrong solution. The National Popular Vote Compact, basically, gives a compact member state's electoral votes to the candidate who wins the most popular votes in the 50 states and District of Columbia (as opposed to the winner of the popular vote in that state). This sets a dangerous precedent; if the state legislature can give the state's electoral votes to the someone other than the winner in that state (which the proponents of the Compact say it can based on Article II Section 1 of the Constitution), why not give them based on some other reason, such as to the candidate who's party controls that state's legislature at that point in time, for example, and "save the public tax dollars" (the Federal law that establishes "election day" for President every fourth year on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, 3 USC 1, does not mandate a popular vote on that day, just that the electors be appointed). Although I do not consider this an immediate threat, it could be a long term consequence. The only way to guarantee an election of the President by a popular vote is to amend the Constitution to provide for the direct election of the President and Vice President.
Many Constitutional Amendment Proposals For a Direct Popular Vote of the President Have One Problem: A Majority Vote.
A number of Constitutional Amendments to require a popular vote for President were introduced in the 109th Congress per this CRS report. There are also several proposed Amendments in the 110th Congress, such as S.J RES 39, H.J. RES 4, and H.J. RES 36 all of which can be accessed at THOMAS, the Congressional website. I have copied one proposal below, H.J. RES 36, from THOMAS.
Section 1. The President and Vice President shall be elected jointly by the direct vote of the citizens of the United States, without regard to whether the citizens are residents of a State.
`Section 2. The persons having the greatest number of votes for President and Vice President shall be elected, so long as such persons have a majority of the votes cast.'.
The problem with many of these proposals is that they don't provide for a majority vote, or if they do, a runoff is required. H.J. RES 36, above, requires a majority but does not detail how to accomplish this if the November election does not produce a such a vote.
My first post, "No Right to Vote for President" recommended a system of three national elections: the first being a national primary (which could be held around April/May) eliminating all but six candidates (although this could also be the party primaries, all on one day); the second which would eliminate all but two candidates (held around August); and the final election in November which would produce a winner with a majority. This solves the problem of a majority vote without a runoff.
One Potential Problem: Election Fatigue.
Although this proposal would require three national elections, I don't believe it would produce election fatigue because under our current system we are always hearing about the next "election" (primary/caucus), even though we may be participating in only two elections (a primary/caucus and general). A national primary, followed by an elimination down to the two strongest candidates (or tickets), topped by the general election would decrease that to three national events, as opposed to a multitude of state events making constant national news, and produce a majority winner in the November election.