The idol was getting wasted one way or another . All he did was affect who was getting the hit . <| sep |> The U . S . is not like other smaller Western countries , where direct democracy is used , because the U . S . is the size of all these countries combined . Imagine if the EU had a President elected by direct election . It would be disastrous . This highlights the issue with the U . S . The population is divided . Even if a direct election occured , the U . S . would still have regions locked down for one party and other regions for the other party . All that would change is the existence of battleground States . There would be battleground cities or counties within those States . Swing States after all are States that don ' t have a significant majority for one candidate or the other . A similar scenario would occur with eliminating the winnertakeall distribution of electoral votes . Direct election or the electoral college does not solve the fundamental problem in U . S . election the population votes in blocs according to ethnicity and location . How could one person represent them all fairly ?