An overwhelming 62 percent of Americans think the electoral college should be eliminated and replaced with a national popular vote for determining who will be president. Only 35 percent of the country thinks the electoral college system should be kept, according to Gallup’s most recent polling on the issue. An indirect fix based on a state compact has only half the states needed to make it work.

Under the electoral college system, presidential elections are decided on a state by state basis. In a relatively close election it is possible for a candidate to lose the national popular vote but still win the necessary 270 electoral college votes by performing well in and winning just enough swing states. The relative unemployment condition in key swing states could thus provide a narrow opening for Obama to win.

To help define what role Firedoglake should play in the 2012 election and beyond, on Wednesday, May 11, at 7:00 pm EDT, I plan, as part of the FDL members webinar series, to examine four basic electoral strategies that have been used by groups or organizations to influence the political process.

Although most states give their electoral college votes to the presidential candidate that wins the most votes in the state, they are technically free to assign those votes based on whatever criteria they want. So, the national popular vote campaign is trying to use this function to essentially replace the arcane and undemocratic electoral college system with a true, national democratic election.

The re-apportionment of congressional districts connected to the 2010 census will result in several Democratic-leaning states, such as New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York, losing House seats. The loss of congressional members, also means these reliably blue states now have fewer votes in the Electoral College. The result could be that the early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire gain even more importance in deciding who the next president will be.

Currently, 74 percent of Americans think the arcane Electoral College we use to elect our President should be abolished. That’s the finding of a poll by Penn Schoen Berland about what Americans think of the Constitution.