Here are the faculty members at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government who are experts on the electoral college.
David King, associate professor of public policy - King is an expert on Congress and the electoral college. He thinks that Congress ought to keep the electoral college and the political reality is that the electoral college will never go away. If we did away with the electoral college, campaigns would just be media campaigns. King says just draw a map of the U.S. and divide it by major media markets and that those would be the campaign targets.
Dutch Leonard, George F. Baker Jr. Professor of Public Management - Leonard is an analyst who compares the electoral weight each state would get based on population with those they get under the electoral college. He says that 33 states have higher weight under the electoral college than they would get if we went to a popular election. Many of these states have significantly higher weight -- Wyoming (the least populous, and therefore most over-weighted state) has more than 3 times as much weight in the electoral college as it would have if presidential selection were by popular election. But, according to the constitution, 38 states have to vote to change it -- that is, only 13 of the 33 electoral-college-advantaged states are necessary to block a change in the electoral college system. He predicts that even if people are unhappy with the way the electoral college played out in this election, the 38 state legislatures that would have to vote to change it will not be easy to find.
Mickey Edwards, John Quincy Adams Lecturer in Legislative Practice - Edwards, a former U.S. Congressman (R-OK), is an expert on Congress, political leadership and the electoral college. He believes that the electoral college is a good system and nothing should be done to change it. The electoral college has been around for a long time and will be around for a long time.
David Pryor, director of the Institute of Politics - Pryor, a former U.S. Senator (D-AK), is an expert on politics and the Democratic Party and has fought for election reform since his early days as a Senator. He believes very strongly that the Constitution should not be amended easily, and if the electoral college is abolished, he doesn't think it will be done quickly. Pryor maintains that a direct vote is the most effective way to elect a president.
The Electoral College Primer 2000 - One man, one vote" may be a familiar democratic motto, but it hardly applies to American presidential elections. That's because of the United States' bizarre electoral college system, which makes it possible for candidates who finish second in the popular vote to triumph in the electoral count. In fact, this has happened at least twice (1876 and 1888). On two other occasions (1800 and 1824), the House of Representatives picked the president when nobody won an electoral-college majority. Thomas Jefferson once described this circumstance as "the most dangerous blot on our Constitution." In the brief but comprehensive Electoral College Primer 2000, Lawrence D. Longley and Neal R. Peirce show why Jefferson's assessment was right on target. They have a keen understanding of the electoral college's vulnerabilities. Through a few simple calculations, for example, they show that Californians have more than two-and-a-half times the voting power of Montana residents. More alarming, however, they describe how a small shift in the popular vote can enact a huge change in the electoral college outcome. They count 22 "hairbreadth elections" in American history, including the 1960 race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon--if 8,971 votes in Illinois and Missouri had switched from Kennedy to Nixon that year, the result would have been an electoral college deadlock. It's amazing the system has held up as well as it has over the years; Longley and Peirce persuasively argue that it's only a matter of time before it breaks down completely. The president of the United States is elected indirectly by the electoral college--an archaic and quirky system that threatens every four years to overturn popular will, warn Lawrence Longley and Neal Peirce. Their authoritative guide provides essential information about the history and workings of the electoral college system and reveals how it distorts campaigns, poorly represents popular will, and could precipitate a constitutional crisis.