It's not perfect, but the electoral college still works

I was drawn into the age old debate surrounding America's Electoral College system thanks to this article on Slate. I am not an American and have never participated in America's voting process, however I've come to believe that, generally, the Electoral College is a system that equalizes rural residents with urban ones, and smaller states with larger ones.

Garrett Epps argues the opposite, however, and believes that the President should be elected by popular vote:

First, electing the president by popular vote would not make the United States into a direct democracy. It would simply assure to each president the legitimacy that the Framers were eager to grant to each member of the House, the certainty that he or she had received more votes than any other candidate.

This, in itself, makes sense. But we must first get some perspective. Many western countries undergo different styles of democracy. In Canada, we have a system called first-past-the-post, where Members of Parliament are elected in each individual constituency. The party with the majority of MPs will form a majority government. As it stands now, our Conservative government failed to achieve a majority, resulting in a weakened central government operating as a minority.

But even in Canada, with a completely different system, our Prime Minister usually hails from a party which receives much less than a majority popular vote. In fact, in some cases (I am thinking back to British Columbia's provincial election in 1996), our Premier's party lost the popular vote but was able to form a majority government thanks to the first-past-the-post system.

Canada has toyed with the idea of election reform, and the Ontario election recently featured a referendum question on this topic (more information on that can be found on this post on the Humanaught). B.C. also had a referendum question on this previously, however it was voted down.

The main concern with a simple popular vote election is that it gives urban areas a substantial advantage over rural communities. If politics are run by money and special interests now, imagine how it would be if simply targeting wealthy urbanites in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Miami could result in being elected President. Like it or not, the electoral college results in many more voices being heard.

I'm open to electoral reform in the United States, but a simple popular vote is not the answer. I am non-partisan when it comes to US politics, however I get the sneaking suspicion that the Democrats may be behind the push to abolish the Electoral College. After all, I think they would have the most to gain.