No, the electoral college seems to be mostly OK to me since without it the elections would be forever determined by a few densely populated coastal cities - which is also where the politicos would turn all their attention to. The rest of the USA would be treated as those districts in those
Hunger Games books, as regions from where the stuff you eat and the stuff you build stuff with comes from but otherwise uninteresting and unimportant.
Ranked Choice is also a bad idea because it is too complicated, just do what many sane countries do to great effect: paper ballots, filled in with a pencil, deposited in a ballot box under the eyes of a staff member. One ballot per person, mail-in voting restricted to those who absolutely need it. Voter ID for everyone, no exceptions. Early voting is mostly OK as long as the ballot boxes are kept under watch ALL THE TIME, no exception.
After the polls close the ballots are hand-counted in the polling locations, then sent off for an automatic machine recount. Mail-in votes are counted beforehand and the results of that count are made available when the last polling booth closes - this is important because 'late mail-in votes' can be used to 'fill in the gaps' which is not what should be happening in free and fair elections. Provisional results will be available on the same day as the elections are held, those provisional results will become final after all results are in and the machine re-count is finished. The only technology needed is a scanner and a tabulator, Herman Hollerhith [1] could have supplied these.
So: paper ballots, hand counted, verified through machine counting. Voter ID like all civilised countries use, no exceptions. Mail-in voting only for those who absolutely need it. Early voting on polling locations OK but the ballot boxes should be guarded 24/7 in an open and verifiable manner, no exceptions allowed. Results available on election day.
[1] https://www.britannica.com/money/Herman-Hollerith
Ranked Choice is also a bad idea because it is too complicated, just do what many sane countries do to great effect: paper ballots, filled in with a pencil, deposited in a ballot box under the eyes of a staff member. One ballot per person, mail-in voting restricted to those who absolutely need it. Voter ID for everyone, no exceptions. Early voting is mostly OK as long as the ballot boxes are kept under watch ALL THE TIME, no exception.
After the polls close the ballots are hand-counted in the polling locations, then sent off for an automatic machine recount. Mail-in votes are counted beforehand and the results of that count are made available when the last polling booth closes - this is important because 'late mail-in votes' can be used to 'fill in the gaps' which is not what should be happening in free and fair elections. Provisional results will be available on the same day as the elections are held, those provisional results will become final after all results are in and the machine re-count is finished. The only technology needed is a scanner and a tabulator, Herman Hollerhith [1] could have supplied these.
So: paper ballots, hand counted, verified through machine counting. Voter ID like all civilised countries use, no exceptions. Mail-in voting only for those who absolutely need it. Early voting on polling locations OK but the ballot boxes should be guarded 24/7 in an open and verifiable manner, no exceptions allowed. Results available on election day.
[1] https://www.britannica.com/money/Herman-Hollerith