The reason that the current system of electing the President produces so many hair-splitting lawsuits, recounts, and disputes is that America’s 158,000,000 voters are divided into 50 separate state-level elections.
The first effect of the existing state-by-state winner-take-all system is that candidates campaign only in a dozen or so closely divided states.
Then, several of these "battleground" states often end up being very close on Election Day -- so that the Presidency gets decided by a handful of votes in a few states (even if the nationwide vote is a blowout).
Real or imagined irregularities invite doubt, hair-splitting legal disputes, and recounts. The resulting loss of confidence in elections was the dynamic that threatened the peaceful transfer of power on January 6, 2021 -- and almost certainly will do so again in the future.
For example, in 2020, less than 22,000 voters out of 158,000,000 decided the Presidency. The general-election campaign was limited to a dozen closely divided "battleground" states. Then, three of them ended up very close on Election Day. If 5,229 voters in Arizona, 5,890 in Georgia, and 10,342 in Wisconsin had voted for Trump instead of Biden, Biden would not have won the Electoral College -- despite leading by over 7,000,000 votes nationally.
In the last 6 elections, our current system of electing the President has demonstrated the fragility created by the state-by-state winner-take method of awarding electoral votes.
- 2 near-misses in the Electoral College (2020 and 2004) and
- 2 elections in which the candidate who lost the nationwide vote became President (2016 and 2000). Details
