Because the United States was created as a union of formerly independent self governing states (Of varying levels between colony and full nation state). Think of a stronger form of the European Union. This is referred to as the Federal Government. Each member state has it's own state government, laws, police, military etc. The federal government is elected by the states, as it's role in general is to govern the states and interstate matters.

If you are not familiar with the US, you may not realize that for instance "murder" is not a federal crime. Each state has it's own laws to cover "murder", and these crimes are investigate by state police authority. Federal laws (historically at least) only govern interstate laws and laws affecting state governments.

The electoral college and senate are designed to give each state fair representation in the federal government. AFAIK, there is no federal requirement that people even be allowed to vote for president. In the past the congress/legislatures of some states would decide who to vote for, but now almost every state now uses the popular vote to decide who that state will vote for in the electoral college.

You are correct, each state can decide on its own how it portions out the electors for President. Most of them currently use a winner takes all system for their electors. Some states break them up according to vote totals. In the past the state legislatures often chose the electors. But over time this has changed to popular vote methods, as you say, which is interesting since that eventually lead us to a discussion about abolishing the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote.

Not is there only no Federal requirement for people to vote for President, there's nothing in the Constitution about the right to vote in the first place. It's more like a privilege that can possibly be taken away. There is a list of reasons in the Constitution that cannot be used to prevent you from voting, many of them added in later via the amendment process. Most of the language of the Constitution doesn't actually give rights to the people, but restricts the actions of the government. The "right" to vote is considered a human right to determine your own leadership, but technically the states can prevent you from voting for any number of reasons. One common example is you lose your ability to vote if you commit a felony. I bet in some states it's even being convicted of a lesser charge is the threshold.

If you do have a "right" to vote, according to government, then it most likely will come from your state's Constitution.

We started out as a collection of states that wanted to present a united front, and smaller states didn't want to have no say (so we get the senate and electoral college) while larger states didn't want their individual voters to have no say (so we get the house of representatives). I'd compare the early structure to the EU, but I haven't looked much at history since highschool.

Despite the overreach of the Federal Government of the last few decades, some say since the Civil War, we are still a collection of states to attempt to present a united front. But the apparent lack of that united front is bigger than just discussing the pros and cons of the Electoral College.

The EU structure from what I know is a similar idea, but I'm not familiar enough with the details on the EU to comment much more than that.

> Why do you need this over-complicated system of states, electoral votes, blue vs. red states, etc?

The overly complicated bits of the electoral system aren't an accident, they originally existed to provide a way to award more votes to slaveholding states. There just wouldn't have been a lot of people (remember, most of the founding fathers didn't count slaves as people) voting in those southern states, so they'd feel underrepresented.

These things take a long time and a lot of effort to change once people figure out whether the system benefits them or not.

No one makes an argument for fairness that's worth taking seriously. But the reality is that the people that would lose power under direct majority vote don't want to change and the 90%+ overlap with majority vote for the winner means there's rarely sustained outrage about "unfair" results (and those are in very close contests anyway).

Actually it shouldn't create as much drama as it does. In our nation's history, I believe only three elections for President had a disagreement between the Electoral College and the national popular vote. In the vast majority of the elections the system works just fine.

The main reason for not having a straight popular vote count is a historical fear of true democracy. Some would say that popular vote leads to mob rule, I being one of them, and that must be avoided. Our own history shows examples of popular vote being used to take advantage of the minority, but that's mostly been on the local and state levels.

Our Federal government was partly designed from the beginning to avoid popular vote problems. There are several checks and balances in place to prevent a majority from absolute rule over the minority. We have three branches of government that keep each other in check in many ways. The most confusing in today's terms is Congress. Congress itself is made up of two bodies, the Senate and the House. The House is supposed to be have elected members based on population of the states, meaning they represent the People. The Senate was originally meant to represent the states, not the People, but since they are voted upon directly by the People it ruins the point of the Senate. Many people forget that the original intention of the Senate was to represent the State's interests on the Federal level. That's why there are two Senators per state, each state gets equal vote. A quick look at the powers given to the Senate versus the House shows which each was intended to represent. Congress writes the laws of the land within the restraints as defined by the Constitution, which often they don't follow. The President, who often used to be voted on by the State legislatures, represents the Nation as a whole. But the states currently decide how to choose electors, most choose popular vote within their state, that ultimately vote for President. He/she (one day) signs into law the bills that Congress passes. The third branch, the Supreme Court, decides on whether laws are valid under the Constitution after a series of rulings from lower courts. Arguments can be made on whether they should be rewriting laws or creating new ones from scratch, of which they do. Supreme Court Justices are nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate (see? state's interest on the Federal level), and are given lifetime tenure to try to avoid political influence.

To complicate things further, most states follow the Federal government in terms of their design of state level governments. Typically the local levels, city and county/parish, tend to go a much simpler route.

So, is it complicated? Yes, it is and that is by design. You can go the quick and easy route of popular vote for major things but history shows that's just a bad idea overall. The system is designed to force people to think, to debate, and to somehow agree before action is taken. Sadly, over the years the system has been degraded in an effort to be "more fair" to somebody. Often politicians wish to "tinker" with things to make things more fair, as long as it gives them an advantage over their political opponents in some way.

Don't feel bad over your confusion, most over here are confused by it as well.

Also, the red/blue states thing is drama created by the news media. I would imagine most everyday citizens could care less.

Is there any legal concept of "nationwide popular vote"? The media reports it, but isn't it something they decided to make up on their own?