On the day the Electoral College's votes for president of the United States

were tallied and announced in Congress last week, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson proposed to eliminate it.

Nelson filed a resolution, seeking a constitutional amendment that would abolish the Electoral College. The system, he said, is outdated, and presidents — like every other elected official — should be chosen by popular, direct vote.

The Electoral College is the product of a compromise by the framers of the U.S. Constitution — some of whom wanted the president appointed by Congress, and most of whom didn't trust the public to directly elect the chief executive.

The college is composed of electors appointed by each state. They cast the ballots that elect the president. Although voting is based on the outcome of the election in each state, the votes cast have little relationship to the outcome of the November election in individual states.

Florida provides an example of how, in some states, the system essentially nullifies individual votes. Democrat Barack Obama received 51 percent of the 8.4 million votes cast in Florida's 2008 general election. Republican John McCain received 48 percent. But because Obama won the popular vote, none of McCain's 4 million votes counted — all of Florida's 27 electoral votes went to Obama. That's because Florida has a "winner take all" law, and its major political parties pledge to follow it.MANY PROBLEMSOther significant problems abound:

Nelson correctly argues that the system "permits a candidate with fewer votes nationally to win the presidency by capturing narrow victories in the big states."

In a press release Thursday, Nelson pointed to the 2000 election of Bush. The president's supporters might dismiss Nelson's citation of the controversial 2000 election as a partisan jab, but the fact that Florida's senior senator refiled his resolution to abolish the Electoral College after Obama's election undermines that criticism.

Supporters of the status quo note that the Electoral College has elected the candidate who didn't get the most popular votes only four times.

But the potential is significant — as the 2000 election showed — plus, four years later, Bush won the popular election by 3.5 million votes, but if John Kerry had won Ohio he could have won in the Electoral College.

The winner-take-all formula pushes candidates to focus on populous states up for grabs and runs contrary to the intent of the Constitution's framers. Florida's status as a competitive state drew vigorous attention from presidential candidates, while smaller states — and even megastates such as California and Texas that are solidly in one party's camp — received less attention.NO DELIBERATION AMONG ELECTORSThe winner-take-all approach isn't a constitutional requirement. The Constitution delegates to the states the authority to allocate their electoral votes: Florida and all but two states use law and/or party pledges, or other means to require presidential electors to award all their votes to the winner of the popular vote. (The Office of the Federal Register reports that, historically, more than 99 percent of electors have voted as pledged.) Maine and Nebraska are the only states that assign electoral votes in proportion to popular vote.

The Constitution's framers envisioned that "presidential electors" would deliberate over the choice of the president, but the winner-take-all concept pre-empts the possibility of deliberations.

Even if the winner-take-all laws and rules were discarded, the changes in presidential elections over the years would warrant the elimination of the Electoral College.

If the Electoral College remains intact, state legislators could and should repeal winner-take-all laws, pledges or practices. The most compelling and practical alternative is promoted by a bipartisan group called National Popular Vote. Its proposal calls for legislatures to pass bills committing their state's electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes nationwide. The bill would take effect only when enacted by states that together have enough electoral votes to elect a president(details: www.nationalpopularvote.com).

The most recent presidential election showed again that the overwhelming majority of Americans registered to vote are intensely interested in casting a ballot in the presidential race. Their votes should be counted and allocated to the candidates — not to elite electors.