One reason the Founders put in the Electoral College was to avoid incentivizing states to loosen their suffrage laws. Under a national popular vote election, it would have been a race to the bottom toward universal male suffrage, or even women voting.
The EC does, of course, conform to the Founders intent of having the House, Senate, and POTUS varying degrees away from popular democracy. But since the POTUS/VP is the only interstate election, the Founders also needed a system that wouldn’t pit States in contest to add voters.
The EC gives states a share of the vote roughly proportional to their populations, without regard to how much of that population can actually vote. That is *exactly* what the Founders wanted.
Note that this is relevant to discussions of a national popular election now. If we had one, nothing would preclude, say, California from lowering their voting age to 12–or to 0–*just* for the presidential election. Or letting non-citizens vote. It’s a problem.
I don’t particularly have an opinion on whether we should have a national popular vote for POTUS—I see pluses and minuses to it—but if we do, I think it’s pretty obvious we need federal nationwide standards on the vote, to prevent such a suffrage race to the bottom.
And, again, this isn’t because I think expanded suffrage is bad—I support lowering the voting age!—but I’m not a fan of a system that basically would force states to do so (or force them to let non-citizens vote), simply to not fall behind in such a race to the bottom.
So I’d want a national floor on voting age for POTUS if we went to a national popular vote, and perhaps a national rule about citizens-only voting.
Further note this has interesting effects on the interstate compact idea. Since that doesn’t envision changing the constitution, Congress may not have the power to adopt national standards for voter eligibility under it. That could create the race to the bottom w/o a federal fix.
