It's a little hard for a modern-day American to wrap his or her head around the Electoral College concept.

To start, when you head to the voting booth during a presidential election, you're not really there to elect a president. The presidential candidates' names are there right in front of you, and you're asked to pick one, but really, you're electing an elector. Confused yet?

It's that elector's job to meet up with all the other electors - some time substantially after the general election - and actually pick a president. Every state gets a share of electors sort-of-but-not-exactly in proportion with its population. And those electors are pledged to vote for whichever presidential candidate won their states - but they're not technically obligated to; an elector can go rogue and vote against his or her state's pick.

Does that sound needlessly complicated and inequitable? That's because it is.

The electoral college was designed specifically to render the notion of "one person, one vote" moot - in an attempt to avoid the so-called tyranny of the majority. That's not necessarily a bad thing; plenty of constitutionally or otherwise lawfully devised procedures exist for the same purpose. Courts, for instance, can override an overwhelming majority in the legislature if the legislature's new law is unconstitutional - if the majority's happy to trample on a right fundamental to life under our system of government.

American democracy might best be summed up like this: "The majority rules, but let's be reasonable here."

In the case of the electoral college, the rough representation of states is kept rough to ensure that one region's interests don't unfairly outweigh another - that a well-populated industrial state can't step all over a more sparsely populated agricultural state. But the system doesn't work well in the era of the global village, when issues of importance are influenced by far more than geography.

Throughout the country, we share a common culture, a common media.

It's trivial to communicate with someone hundreds of miles away, and our sense of community has adjusted itself to this new reality.

Regional representation is no longer our primary concern - it's ideological representation.

Geography still matters, it's just no longer the be-all end-all. And in an age where so many influences factor into our political perspectives, there really is no reasonable alternative to "one person, one vote." It's simply the fairest approach available.

Rhode Island Sen. Daniel Issa agrees, and that's why he's angling to have the state subscribe to the National Popular Vote system. We suspect Issa knows the plan will never quite work - it would ask electors to pledge to support the overall popular vote, regardless of what their states do - because of partisan concerns among electors.

Actually abolishing the Electoral College itself would be even more difficult - and require a difficult-to-pass constitutional amendment.

But we applaud the statement Issa's trying to make, and would welcome changes that take away the incentive for candidates to pander to so-called "battleground" states while ignoring the interest of the country as a whole.

Voters don't feel represented - in part because they really aren't, not directly. Who can blame them?