If we insist on keeping the Electoral College, an anachronism in the first place, since there is no longer any danger of Delaware or Rhode Island refusing to join the Union in 1787, then the electoral votes should just be awarded automatically. There is certainly no need to send chosen electors to some gathering to formalize the count. That, too is an anachronism, and a fully unnecessary one.
An elector volunteers to do their duty and carry out the task they have pledged to do. Yes, they are susceptible to bribes or even twangs of conscience. I remember when a few electors for Bush I were getting cold feet about casting their pledged votes for him because it meant putting Dan Quayle a heartbeat away from the presidency. I have to wonder if any of the electors pledged to vote for John McCain in 2008 were having the same thoughts about Sarah Palin, although we luckily never had to worry about that with Obama's decisive margin of victory that year.
In the era of Trump, Republicans have tossed off all pretense of being opposed to corruption, and so electors being available to the highest bidder is no longer scandalous speculation, but more like a conceivable likelihood. If we can't get rid of the EC, we can al least get rid of for-sale electors, and just have the Federal Election Commission tabulate the electoral votes based on each state's results, and have the power to order a thorough, UNIMPEDED review of any state's votes should they seem in doubt (e.g. Florida 2000, Ohio 2004, several states in 2016). This would include an overseen count of paper ballots, plus a thorough, independently conducted forensic examination of every electronic voting machine used. A mandatory minimum five year jail sentence should be imposed on anyone found to have manipulated one of the voting machines, and that would go for anyone having instructed such a person to do so. If the technician having carried out the manipulation refuses to reveal the identity of the person who instructed him to perform his act, he then serves the extra five years that his boss would have served. THAT should provide some serious dis-incentive to anyone promised money to shut up if caught. Fifteen years extra if he falsely accuses someone in order to protect his higher-up.
Electoral fraud is ALWAYS committed by Republicans these days, so they will howl in protest, but ONLY Republicans will howl in protest. That will not escape the media. Maybe even some voters will figure it out.
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