NPV 4a - keep or drop the electoral college

This is one of the continuations of the comments on the 9-22-10 post National Popular Vote 4. This one concerns whether we should keep the electoral college. The other continuation deals with whether, if we change, the NPV Compact is the best way to go.

The last comment on this aspect of the thread was by toto on 9-24 at 4:27 PM as follows:

In FairVote's study of 7,645 statewide elections in the 26-year period from 1980 through 2006, the average change in the margin of victory as a result of a recount was a mere 274 votes. The original outcome remained unchanged in over 90% of the recounts.

A recount is not an unimaginable horror or logistical impossibility. A recount is a recognized contingency that is occasionally required (about once in 332 elections). All states routinely make arrangements for a recount in advance of every election. The personnel and resources necessary to conduct a recount are indigenous to each state. A state's ability to conduct a recount inside its own borders is unrelated to whether or not a recount may be occurring in another state.

If anyone is genuinely concerned about the possibility of recounts, then a single national pool of votes is the way to drastically reduce the likelihood of recounts and eliminate the artificial crises produced by the current system.

The U.S. Constitution requires the Electoral College to meet on the same day throughout the U.S. (mid-December). This sets a final deadline for vote counts from all states. In Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court has interpreted the federal "safe harbor" statute to mean that the deadline for the state to finalize their vote count is 6 days before the meeting of the Electoral College.