Popular votes

Today while driving back from work, my friend Pat and I were discussing the electoral college vote in US, and how the president is elected. We were thinking whether it is really a democratic way of electing a president because the president is elected by proportionate vote and not people's vote directly. Then I realized that even in India, we do not elect the prime minister directly. Yes, even we do not have popular vote. We vote and elect members for parliament and whichever party or coalition has majority of parliament members, gets to decide on the prime minister and run the administration. Of course, the president of India is elected by electoral college by both houses of the parliament, but then, our President’s post is more of a ceremonial post. Then I asked Pat which countries have popular vote, and elects its chief or head directly. He said Finland is one. Then later I came home and did some research on the Internet and found few countries which elects its chief or head by popular vote. These are some of the countries : Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Mexico, Finland, France, Russia. Interesting!