"Democracy is imperfect, and often messy, but it would be less so if the Electoral College were to be abolished."

Easier written than done. Since 1800 there have been more than 700 attempts to abolish or modify the Electoral College - all have failed. The importance of who is elected POTUS justifies requiring a majority - instead of a plurality - of those making the decision. Direct democracy - electing the POTUS by national popular vote - does not ensure a majority winner when there are more than two candidates. What if the popular votes for the top two candidates were extremely close as in 2000? The votes in every state could impact who is the winner. There would be recounts, audits, and court challenges in every state delaying the outcome for months and past the inauguration date. Would the outgoing president continue to preside until everything is resolved? The stress on our republic would be excessive and violence could result. Even it there was a provision that after a certain date the House of Representatives would decide on the winner, is that better? Is it better to have the Supreme Court decide like what happened in 2000 for Florida's recount? I think not!

The safest and most practical action is to change how the states allocate their electoral votes to improve the results in the Electoral College as it is. If the states would just allocate all of their electoral votes to the statewide popular majority vote winner the Electoral College majority vote winner would better reflect the national popular vote. This is easily accomplished by replacing plurality voting with the instant runoff capability of ranked choice voting.