Is there any plausible argument in favor of the electoral college?

[Associate Justice PiT]

     1. It makes elections more fun.

     2. It makes appealing to the extremes less fashionable since they probably won't give you the support you need to win enough states.

[Associate Justice PiT]

(b) "It makes appealing to the extremes less fashionable since they probably won't give you the support you need to win enough states."

This certainly isn't obvious. Please elaborate.

     What I mean is that driving up turnout amongst the core base in places like Utah & Massachusetts isn't good enough. There are places like Iowa where swing voter turnout is high enough to make sure that people like Musgrave or Rangel wouldn't have a prayer at winning, regardless of how much they charge up the base.

     Though those are extreme examples, the point remains that it makes it harder to win by just turning out your base since you'll be forced to compete in more moderate states.

     At any rate, the argument sounded better when I first posted it than it does now.

[Associate Justice PiT]

What we should do is give ballot access ot any candidate who gets an endorsement from enough Congressmen, like they do in France.

I don't really want to give them that power...

It'd force smaller parties to focus on Congress, thus keeping the incumbents honest.

Actually, in France, you need a certain number of endorsements (500?) from any elected official, including mayors and members of the General and Regional Assemblies. Minor parties without MPs can still run a candidate.

That's right. That'd be fine, too.

     That would probably be a good idea. Minor parties would have to focus on races like mayor & school board. Alternatively, maybe if they have at least 1 elected official per 500,000 people in a particular state, they get ballot access in that state.