HARRISBURG -- Thomas Jefferson called the Electoral College the "most dangerous blot on our Constitution." Popular author James Michener, who served as a Pennsylvania elector in the close election of 1968, wrote that the Electoral College had the potential to wreck our country.

As the nation awaits a recount of Florida’s ballots to determine whether George W. Bush or Al Gore will obtain the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, debate over the future of the Electoral College is surfacing for the umpteenth time in our nation’s history.

The possibility that Bush will win on the basis of votes cast by electors in the 50 states, and not the overall popular vote, is leading some observers to suggest this 18th century institution has no place in a 21st century democracy. They are calling for a national constitutional amendment to scrap the Electoral College and its system of apportioning electoral votes to the 50 states and instead elect the president by direct popular vote.

Since it can take years to pass a constitutional amendment, the Electoral College will continue functioning -- as it has for the past 200 years -- to officially elect the next president.

Pennsylvania’s 23 electors are to meet Dec. 18 at the state Capitol. Since Gore won Pennsylvania’s popular vote, his slate of electors was elected over a slate pledged to Bush.

But Pennsylvania, like about half of the states, has no law on the books requiring designated electors to vote for the candidate who won the state’s vote or else be liable for a fine.

So the potential always exists that a so-called faithless elector could bolt vote from the Gore camp and vote for someone else. A handful of faithless electors have surfaced over the years. Federal courts have allowed this practice when challenges have been filed. But electors are carefully picked by the presidential campaigns on the basis of one key attribute: loyalty to the party.

Pennsylvania’s 23 Gore electors consist of elected officials, Democratic party activists and labor leaders, some known to the public and some more familiar to insiders.

They include Kathy Black, AFL-CIO treasurer Richard Bloomingdale, Auditor General Robert Casey Jr., House Minority Leader William DeWeese, Nelson Diaz, AFL-CIO President William George, Ken Jarin, James J. Johnston, labor leader Ed Keller, Alan Kessler, Lou Lignelli, Senate Minority Leader Robert Mellow, Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy, Robert O’Connor, Lazar M. Palnick, Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed, Rep. T.J. Rooney, Erie Mayor Joyce Savocchio, Philadelphia Mayor John Street, Sen. Christine Tartaglione, Marion Tasco, Sala Udin and Anna Verna.

Looking at Tuesday’s election, author Michener would be saying "I told you so" if he were alive today. Michener penned a book titled "Presidential Lottery" about what he perceived as the dangers of the Electoral College. He based the book on his first-hand experience as a Pennsylvania elector pledged to Democrat Hubert Humphrey in 1968, an election that Richard Nixon narrowly won by 500,000 votes.

"The system has three major weaknesses," Michener wrote at the time. "It places the legal responsibility for choosing a president in the hands of an Electoral College, whose members no one knows and who are not bound to vote the way their state votes. If the Electoral College does not produce a majority vote for some candidate, the election is thrown into the House of Representatives where anything can happen. And it is quite possible that the man (woman) who wins the largest popular vote across the nation will not be chosen president, with all the turmoil that this might cause."

Michener outlined four reform proposals. These may get new currency in coming weeks depending upon how this election is resolved: