Earlier this year, Fred Wolferman's column defended the Electoral College.

The college is an anachronism, adopted when the nation was rural. Mail took weeks. Election by popular vote would have been hard.

Mr. Wolferman mentioned the tie in the Electoral College in 1800. (This constitutional oversight or error was corrected by the 12th Amendment.)

In 1824, Andrew Jackson won the popular vote and electoral votes but lost in the House of Representatives to John Quincy Adams because Henry Clay, also a candidate, had his own presidential ambitions.

In 1876, an electoral commission (not in the Constitution) chose Rutherford B. Hayes. Samuel Tilden had 203 electoral votes and a 250,000 popular-vote majority until Republicans used political machinery to invalidate Democratic ballots and choose their own electors.

The election of 2000 doesn't come close to the corruption of 1876.

Mr. Wolferman implied the Electoral College makes presidential candidates campaign throughout the country. Nonsense, candidates spend nearly all their time in states that have big electoral votes and may have a close election.

Could these messes occur again? Of course, regardless of how we choose the president. In a popular vote, a ballot in North Carolina would have the same value as one in South Dakota. It doesn't now.

Electors in many states are free to vote for whomever they please.

The solution? An amendment to abolish the Electoral College and establish a procedure for electing our president by popular vote.

Turmoil of recounts, runoffs, and finding a majority could be avoided by simply having voters rank all candidates.

Meanwhile, the idea of states waiting to see who wins the popular vote, and then casting that state's electoral votes for the winning candidate doesn't seem so "stupid" (Wolferman's word).

Consider the alternative we have now.

David Page

Southern Pines