They covered this in Hitchhiker’s Guide. The answer is a towel. A towel is just about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can carry.

Saying it’s more efficient was meant to be a little tongue in cheek. It’s not now. It was a few hundred years ago when communication was still done by horseback.

Having local governments does mitigate the effect megacities have on rural locations, yes, but not regarding national elections. An argument I’ve heard time and time again for keeping the EC is that without it, each president would be decided by NYC and LA.

Right. Which is why I stated in my original comment that I am in favor of a popular majority vote…

Edit: typo

What doesn’t? That rural states have more weight via the EC than they would in a popular vote? It’s not a benefit to the country and citizens as a whole, but it is to those individual states.

EC is great when you’ve got too many people to tally votes efficiently. So basically it’s only use since the advent of the telegraph is to ensure mega cities don’t disproportionately affect rural locations via election results. With EC, rural states have more weight than they otherwise would. I still think we should switch to a popular vote for elections.