The Electoral College is a ticking time bomb.

• Author: Young, Michael L.

Now that the U.S. has won the Cold War, achieved economic prosperity, gotten crime under control, and balanced the budget, maybe we can tackle a really tough problem. The time has come to straighten out the Electoral College -- that archaic anti-democratic and confusing system used to elect the president. It is a ticking time bomb that sooner or later will go off in the face of the American people.

The general case against the Electoral College is straightforward: It ultimately will misfire and elect a president who has lost the popular vote. This is most likely to happen under the widely used winner-take-all system in which a candidate may lose one or two large states narrowly while winning decisively in medium and small states.

This is not merely a theoretical situation. It has happened twice -- in 1876 and 1888 -- and has been averted only narrowly in several other elections. In fact, mathematicians calculate that there is a one in two chance that a very close election (like 1960) will elect a president that has lost in the popular vote and a one in three chance that even a moderately close election (like 1976) will have that effect.

Yet another possibility is that the Electoral College machinery might toss the election into the House of Representatives, where each state would have just one vote. This happens if there is a tie in the Electoral College or if no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes. Residents of larger states like California, Texas, New York, and Florida would be vastly underrepresented in any election decided by the House.

Moreover, this is not the end of the possible problems. Even more mind-boggling to the average person is the possibility that a duly selected elector might cast a vote for a candidate other than to whom he or she is pledged. Termed the "faithless elector problem." this has occurred only a handful of times and never has been important to the outcome. Still, the possibility exists in extraordinary circumstances that faithless electors could nullify the popular vote.

A bit of history is helpful. Imagine for a moment we are back in Philadelphia in 1787. The Constitutional Convention is winding down. Everyone is feeling pretty good, and with some reason. The delegates have taken care of what George Bush might have called the "Congress Thing" (Article 1), the "Judicial Thing" (Article 3), the "Federal Thing" (Article 4), the "Amendment Thing" (Article 5), the "Supremacy Clause Thing" (Article 6)...