The National Popular Vote plan, as described in the page you linked, does seem to be an even more fair system but, excuse me for being pessimistic, it appears to be something that will be a long, long time coming — if it ever does. It will be great if it happens but when you count on the cooperation of 50 states and the District to implement any plan you have something far less than a sure thing.

I wish you the best of luck — anything that brings the actual sentiments of the majority in line with the outcome is a good thing in my book.

As to a history of the Electoral College: one of the key reasons a National popular vote was rejected was, according to this one of many sources: The Origin and History of The Electoral College is because the Framers felt that, at best, “the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones.”

1) Congressional districts are rarely competitive. In California, for example, only three of the states’ 53 districts will be close in 2008 in a nationally competitive election. Gerrymandering is a minor factor in this general lack of competition — the bigger one is an underlying tilt in most areas.

2) It is intrinsically partisan. When done in “spectator states” in which the minority party will only win electoral votes because of it, motivations for doing it are nearly always going to be partisan. If done nationally, it will distort the popular vote in close elections even more than the current system — in 2000, for example, Bush would have won by 38 more electoral votes even while losing the popular vote to Gore.

For more on the problems with congressional district allocation, see our new report called “Wrong Way Reforms for Allocating Electoral Votes” at:
http://fairvote.org/?page=1786&articlemode=showspecific&showarticle=2741

Finally, please re-read your history of why the electoral college was put in place and the goals of some of the founders in doing it. Many expected it to help small states primarily through the mechanism of their power when the election has to be decided in the U.S. House — most thought that Congress would have to pick the winner in most presidential races, and there each state would have one vote regardless of size. But James Madison and others already were ready for a national popular vote — 220 years later, we absolutely are ready. See http://www.nationalpopularvote.com