What are the benefits to the US Electoral College system?

Boldizzle@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 140 points –

So I'm a New Zealander and I have a pretty good idea on how the electoral college system works but it honestly sounds like something that can be easily corrupted and it feels like it renders the popular vote absolutely useless unless I'm totally missing something obvious?

So yeah if someone could explain to me what the benefits of such a system are, that would be awesome.

Edit - Thanks for the replies so far, already learning a lot!

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Haha no way! I’m connected with some history teachers that teach in FL, and the conflicts they’re going though are just mind boggling.

I do live in a purple state that is protected from that crap by a Democratic governor elected with a pretty slim majority. So it could well happen to me in the future. I’ve given a lot of thought to how I’d handle being in that situation. Scary stuff.

Yeesh. Wishing you all the best from Scotland. Scary to see what people like De Santis are trying to do.

Yeah, two friends of mine uprooted their lives to move from Texas to Florida and things were going well until some of the higher ups were switched about. Last I heard they had only spent a year or two in Florida before making their way back to Texas.