We just had a demonstration in the US of the desirability of a process that unambiguously reveals the winner of a presidential election. Well, having 50 smaller elections, then combining the results in an electoral college is one such process. In particular, if it werent for the federalized structure, i.e., if we had a purely popular vote, in 2000 we would've had to re-count not just the Florida ballots, but also the ballots in the other 49 states.