Why does the US have 2 continents that elect electoral votes directly on a vote-by-vote basis rather than on an electoral system?

The broader context is that the US electoral system has actually been reformed with the overall goal of fair vote, and the winner-take-all approach in each state obviously doesn't satisfy everyone, so it's not surprising that there have actually been various small changes to the electoral system over the past 200 years.

Specifically why Maine and Nebraska now. Massachusetts actually used to have precinct elections in the 1800s, thought because Massachusetts had more literate politicians who were more active in reform, and Maine was part of Massachusetts at the time, and then Maine continued the tradition of precincts when it became independent.

Then Massachusetts and Maine went back to the old ways until 1968, when there were three candidates, and the winner-take-all approach resulted in someone theoretically needing only a minimum of 34 percent of the vote to get all the seats, magnifying the drawbacks of the winner-take-all approach. Reformers in Maine took this as an opportunity to propose a return to the tradition of gerrymandering, which was passed and remains in place today.

Maine's **** and party power is so strong that there is little difference between the results of splitting or not splitting, which is a big part of why the parties were able to allow Maine to be a maverick. Nebraska only switched to zoning in 9 years or so, also with a reformist push, and it also didn't affect the big picture too much so the change was successful.

Expanded Information

The total number of "electoral votes" in the United States***538, which is the total number of Senators (100), Representatives (435), and Representatives from Washington, D.C. (3). Senators are allocated on a state-by-state basis, with two from each of the 50 states; Representatives are elected on a population basis, with one elected by more than half a million people. New York State, for example, with a population of about 16+ million, has 31 Representatives, plus 2 Senators, for a total **** of 33 electoral votes.

Except in Maine and Nebraska, any presidential candidate who wins a majority of the state's votes wins all of the state's electoral votes, which is known as "winner-take-all". Under the Electoral College system, a candidate is elected president if he or she wins more than half (270) of the 538 cumulative electoral votes in each state.

Because of the winner-take-all calculation, it is possible for a candidate to win the national popular vote by headcount but lose the election because he or she did not get more than half of the electoral votes.