Going with a straight popular vote in America would be disastrous. Right now a handful of large and early states have a disproportionate amount of power, but with the popular vote the big cities would have the numbers every time. If you ignore NY and CA Hillary lost the popular vote by 3 million votes.

There is a big movement right now called the National Popular Vote Compact that is trying to do an end-run around the Constitution by getting the Electoral College delegates to agree to vote for the popular vote winner regardless of how their state votes. They're almost 2/3 of the way to getting 270 delegates to do it. Connecticut just passed legislation to force it in their state.

If we lost the Electoral College will turn into Panem from the Hunger Games: https://steemit.com/politics/@metzen/what-does-the-electoral-college-have-to-do-with-the-hunger-games