Well, if you live in the United States, then you probably should know that our president is elected, not on the votes of the people, but on the members of the electoral college.

Do you like this system/think that it is better, or would you rather have a direct popular vote?

Really this is pretty two-sided, so I'll pop in now and again and post a few points for the opposite side to spice things up if the answers are all leaning to one side.

If you do not know much about the electoral college a few helpful links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)
http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

just to get a decent understanding of both sides...

This is more US, but anyone can opine, I'm curious as to see how this will progress.

My opinion on it is that it sounds dumb on the outside. But it hasn't really mattered since 2000 when the EV conflicted with the PV. Even than, We've only had a few elections where that's happened. If it happens again than I'll be angry.

Its dumb to have so few people voting but then again,i think presidential elections are dumb,you can have a democrat president and republican congress,it just makes policy making mad.
I think if presidential elections must stay it should only be open to the majority party.

This was discussed in my history class back when I was in high school. The system was originally implemented because the officials decided the people weren't smart enough. They do let the people vote, but the electoral college makes it more even.

Now we keep the electoral college to keep the vote fair. If we went with popular vote, the larger states could decide the election on their own. Imagine if everyone in Texas and California all voted for the same person. The odds of that person not becoming president is pretty small considering how many people are in those states.

Because of the Electoral vote we got a second Bush in office despite the Popular vote. It definitely should be up to the people. More so, there should be laws against  "big wigs" (banks and large Corp.) funding campaigns. Politicians make a lot of money pushing for corporate agenda .

As much as it doesn't seem to make sense, BNuge pretty much sums up why the Electoral College is necessary... all it would take is the majority of people in California or Texas voting for one candidate and they would dominate.

I used to be more for the popular vote... then California elected Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor and I realized just how right the Founding Fathers were.

We had a debate about this yesterday at school
I think it should be the popular vote because with the current system if you win texas , california,Florida thats pretty much with winning afew more small states.
but with popular vote its every vote in every state counted to decide on a winner

Even though I despise the fact that the electoral college was what led to 4 more years of Bush, I think it is necessary. BNuge explained it well. Even though hnnn said that if you get those three big states, it is a win, it can be even more so if popular vote were the deciding factor simply with how many people are in those states. The ratio of people in those larger states to smaller states is far more overwhelming than the amount of electoral college votes the big states gets compared to the smaller states. There is one thing I have disliked about the electoral college method though. I don't like that if a state is say 51%-49% split, ALL the electoral college votes go to the side that got the 51%. I think a more representative way of college votes is to take how many votes were counted in the state, find the percentage of votes for both sides, and split the electoral votes accordingly. If a state has 4 electoral college votes, and 25% of the people voted for one candidate, then that candidate should get 1 electoral college vote from that state. That way, if you are not on the majority side of your state, your vote will still at least mean something. With the way it is now, all votes against the majority for that state really don't matter, which is not good representation of democracy. 

rcarter2 : Well then maybe it would be wise to rethink the states to try and make them more equal in terms of population size.

thenumberone : I'm not quite understanding this. How would we make the states equal in population size?

rcarter2 : you'd carve em up,theyre just legislative areas,making them smaller should,hypothetically,improve regional efficiency as a knock on effect of more localised governance.

rcarter2 : I agree. Something like that happened in Nebraska in 2008 I think (or was it Kansas?)... one district voted so overwhelmingly for Obama that one of the states electoral votes went to him while the rest went to McCain. I think in a case of a close split like a 51:49 that the votes should be divided as evenly as possible with the 51% candidate getting one higher vote.

thenumberone : It is not possible. People identify so strongly with their state that they would never consent to it being redrawn. There is too much history. It would be like Parliament declaring that they were going to divide the island of Great Britain into equal thirds... do you really think that anyone would stand for that?

Elara : well scotland already is about a 3rd =p
Although that depends on context,if it was dividing independence wish perhaps no,if it was dividing legislative wise id say yes. In the years in which scotland has regained its own parliament wealth has increase, and things like knife and gun crime have gone down.
A lot of progress can be made from decisions like that.
In the case of states,most were never countrys,and shown by the arrow straight borders further west they werd drawn up federaly. Whoever drew them up was a moron too i would add. Look at the size of california.
At the end of the day, livelyhood should take precedence over identity, i dont think anyone in the states would agree,but then again nationalism is somewhat stronger in the usa.

thenumberone : I mean  really divide it up, which would mean that everything south of Liverpool, including London would now be part of Wales, and pretty much everything south of Glasgow would become England. I don't think people would be happy with that.

But yeah, the thirteen original colonies were pretty much little nations unto themselves until the ratification of the Constitution, even printing their own unique money, charging tariffs for out of state goods, etc etc. That mindset, though lessened to a degree, persisted in the formation of the newer states... which started out as independent territories free from US rule (it's why the "wild west" is such a fascinating period to study). I think the series Deadwood demonstrates that idea best. Such loyalty to state was also one of the big things about the American Civil War. General Robert E. Lee was offered control of the UNION Army when the war was just breaking out, but he was from Virginia, one of the states trying to secede, and later the capital of the Confederacy... and though he felt that secession was a bad idea (and there are many sources confirming this), he refused to fight against his native state, instead resigning his commission and returning home, declaring that he would never again raise his sword, "except in defense of my native state of Virginia."

I will admit though that I have now idea how most of the state boundries came about except for those that go along rivers (such as the states bordering the Mississippi River)

Elara : Well tbh i wouldnt suggest deviding based on land mass,but on population size.
A lot of the us states were simply bought or conquered off europeans and hence never independence.
Personaly,i see little problem,the variaton state to state culturaly etc is not massive,and they always will be part of the usa so other than state legislation states are pretty insignificant.
The difference in the uk can be shown by the fact that in the south,it was a major(politically)conservative victory,whereas accross the border they only got one seat.
I think a president/prime minister should be the one thats leader of his party(by the vote of his party)because voting for both seperately is going to reduce efficiency quite dramatically.
And when consistant politically different votes keep coming from certain regions i think thats when to split,traditional ideas of nations are flawed and over nationalistic,they should be based on political outlook.
This is interesting(link).i dont think less states would be as beneficial as more states but it does identify good reasons for change.
Like each us citizen saving about 100 bucks.
http://www.tjc.com/38states/

thenumberone : Is it sad that the proposed state of Erie doesn't even touch Lake Erie?

And there actually is more cultural variation than you'd think... you just never notice it until you pass through it. I mean, yeah by and large it's not radically different, but it is enough. Just the whole "soda vs pop" transition sets my teeth on edge. Dividing based on political outlook doesn't really work as well here, as I've noticed that the large urban areas are largely democratic while rural areas are more republican... if we did political division we'd end up with hundreds of states for ever major city like Philadelphia, Los Angeles, St. Louis, etc etc that are tiny, surrounded by large--yet sparsely populated--republican states.

Elara : haha,youd think he wouldnt have called the state erie then,perhaps he didnt know.
I was interested by the fact many citys cross states making it an ergonomical nightmare,ie which state pays for what,and for all or part etc.
Hmm,i see,well plenty of states have no rural regions so it'd work there.
The problem with the usa,is so much focuss was put on expansion very little planing went to structure until it was too late.certainly theres no easy solution but some changes really need to be made.
Just a slight tangent for one second for me to say,i find it strange that the usa only has 2 noticeable partys that are barely any different,i get the impresion a lot of americans are scared of the idea of change.

thenumberone : As a long-suffering member of one of the third parties, I have to agree. I mean, it isn't like everyone is afraid of change... just the ones that scream loudest and/or have the most money.