Why is he US voting/electoral system so difficult and apparently disused?

Last Tuesday we talked about the US voting system and I am still confused how this system today works and why they still have such an old and disused indirect electoral system in the United States. Congressional elections in the United States take place every two years and the US Congress has two different chambers.

First of all, the House of Representatives in the US has 435 members. They are elected for a two year term in single-seat constituencies, therefore the elections are held every two years on the first Tuesday after November 1 in even years.

Secondly, the US Senate has 100 members. The Senate elections also take place every two years, but the members will be elected for a six year term in dual-seat constituencies/two members from each state/ with only one-third being renewed every two years.

Furthermore, the most important US Presidential elections only take place every four years. The year the US Presidential elections take place must be divisible by four; therefore the last election we all should still remember was in 2008. US President Barack Obama and his Vice President Joe Biden were elected together in this Presidential election. Today’s Presidential elections are still indirect in the United States and Congressional elections which do not take place together with these Presidential elections are called mid-term elections.

As I already said in my initial paragraph the US Presidential elections are still indirect today. The winner and therefore the new US President will be determined by electors of the so-called United States Electoral College. This means that the voters in each State of the United States select a slate of electors from a list of several slates designated by different parties or candidates. These electors have to promise in advance to vote for the candidates of their party. The winner of the election will be the one with at least 270 Electoral votes.

Today the US Electoral College consists of 538 electors. 435 of them come from the 50 different US States, depending on the number of districts they have, therefore depending on the population of each State. California for example, as one of the biggest States has 53 different districts, which means 53 representatives/electors. There is also the group of 100 Senators as electors, two from each State plus 3 Delegates directly from Washington. Altogether a number of 538 electors finally elect the new US President.

The indirect US electoral system is often criticized for being undemocratic by definition because of its already mentioned indirectness on the one hand and for several other reasons on the other hand. There is for example the problem with the so-called swing States, like Florida. These States are States in which no candidate has overwhelming support; therefore any of the major candidates have a reasonable chance of winning the Electoral College votes of the State. Therefore, the voters in these swing States often determine the outcome of the US Presidential election and the majority of Americans, who do not live in these States, are largely ignored by most of the political campaigns. Moreover, a lot of very small US States is better represented by the Electoral College than other much bigger and much more important States. These smaller States seem to be overrepresented compared with voters from larger States like California.

All these above mentioned facts finally show the necessity to abolish the old indirect US electoral system and to replace it with a modern national direct system. The US electoral system is criticized so often and I think it is time to replace it in order to still provide a role model (voting system) for other countries worldwide, like Iran. ;)