Another conventional criticism of the National Popular Vote plan (made into Illinois law yesterday) is that it somehow represents a rejection of the Founding Fathers' wishes.

Over at TAPPED, the American Prospect's Tom Schaller has noted an interesting bit of context regarding the Founders' intentions in devising the Electoral College:

So I just got back from the Midwest Political Science Association meetings in Chicago this past weekend, and I was pleasantly embarrassed to learn something about the Electoral College from The New Yorker’s Hendrick Hertzberg during a Friday morning panel about the presidential race [...] Namely, that the Founders intended the College to effectively be the nominating vehicle, presuming that wide open elections in that pre-party era would produce a bunch of regional candidates, none of whom were able to reach the sufficient, majority threshold, thereby throwing elections to the U.S. House for a proper (general election stage-ish) decision.

Those invoking the Founders in their counter-arguments should remember how utterly different an electoral landscape they faced while conceiving of the Electoral College system. Indeed, in the introduction to Steven Hill's book 10 Steps to Repair American Democracy, Hertzberg himself put it nicely: "The question isn't: What way back then, did Jefferson (and Madison and Hamilton) do? The question is: What would they do now?"