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Do away with the electoral college, and the fine people of New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta and Miami would be selecting the President of the United States. A straight popular vote would mean that candidates would conduct their campaigns in the most population-dense areas, and advocating policies that would be most popular in urban areas.
Why campaign in Kansas, or South Dakota, or Montana? The population densities are too low, campaigns are driven by money, they would go where they'd get bang for the buck.
And it would take a Constitutional Amendment to dissolve the electoral college. You want it to better reflect popular vote? Ask your state to change the rules. Nebraska and Maine can divide electors between candidates. So can all the other states. The states decide how to select electors, and whether to compel the electors to vote with the state majority or not. State laws, not federal ones. It is much easier to change state laws than it is to get a Constitutional Amendment passed.
Do away with the electoral college, and the fine people of New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta and Miami would be selecting the President of the United States. A straight popular vote would mean that candidates would conduct their campaigns in the most population-dense areas, and advocating policies that would be most popular in urban areas.
Why campaign in Kansas, or South Dakota, or Montana? The population densities are too low, campaigns are driven by money, they would go where they'd get bang for the buck.
And it would take a Constitutional Amendment to dissolve the electoral college. You want it to better reflect popular vote? Ask your state to change the rules. Nebraska and Maine can divide electors between candidates. So can all the other states. The states decide how to select electors, and whether to compel the electors to vote with the state majority or not. State laws, not federal ones. It is much easier to change state laws than it is to get a Constitutional Amendment passed.
To some extent I agree, but campaigns are evolving into an internet experience, and viral campaigning and PayPal fundraising mean more access in rural areas for those who want it.
And I also think more would vote, and a vote from S Dakota or Wyoming would be equal in the total to a vote from NYC,
If we allowed the popular vote to rule, wouldn't most of our candidates then be from the most populous states?
They'd certainly be conducting their campaigns in the most populous states. And the biggest cities, which, if polls are correct, are where the most liberal Americans live.
The entire nomination and election process is not just about Americans selecting a leader. It's an opportunity, every four years, for Americans to talk to the person who will become the leader. The campaigns are not just meant for the candidates to make speeches and hand out literature to let voters know where he or she stands, the campaigns are really the opportunity for voters to tell the candidates what issues are important to them, where they stand, what they want from the government and what they think of the government's performance. The communication is two-way, and there are a lot more voices coming from the electorate.
The electoral college SLIGHTLY weights votes from less populated areas. Very slightly. Just enough so that the candidate will be tempted to stump in the countryside of America, not just in the cities.
To some extent I agree, but campaigns are evolving into an internet experience, and viral campaigning and PayPal fundraising mean more access in rural areas for those who want it.
And I also think more would vote, and a vote from S Dakota or Wyoming would be equal in the total to a vote from NYC,
The internet is a terrific new forum for politics. But how important to the candidate would be the 64 votes from Podunk, Wyoming against the 2 million votes from Los Angeles and the 4 million votes from New York City? If you're from LA, do you really care about the bridges being built in Wyoming, or about funding libraries in rural areas? Even if you do care, are those issues more important than funding public transportation in Los Angeles? Or keeping water available and prices for it down in Los Angeles? What happens when you go to popular vote is that issues in big cities like New York or Los Angeles will outweigh the issues of Topeka, KS or Minnetonka, MN. Voters in more urban areas become more important than voters in rural areas. Urban issues drive the campaigns, which was one of the fears of the Founding Fathers that caused them to set up the electoral college to begin with.
I thnik it works pretty well and there is so much fraud in the popular vote. It also allows smaller staes to have a say.In fact it is much better than the supoer delegates we have sen this last election and there must be some tie breaker system. Overall I would say it works fine. Compart that to local election in amny sates where the frud and suppression of voters is common.As I recall the newpapers in the conti9es involved in the chad 2000 election did recount the vote and found it changed nothing in Florida. In fact there was voter fraud found in that like ten thousand winet residence voted twice in the election it was found.If anyhting I think that peole want to see the nominatting vote changed to where more states vote at the same time in a rotating bases ;so that more peole get to vote on the toal number of those running instead of one of two staes eliminating the chace of people to vote for a full slate. Much more of a problem.
I don't think it matters since most cities will vote Democrat 100% of the time regardless of the candidate. The obvious exception was 1980 but I won't get into that. People will vote strictly on party lines under electoral college. A lot of voters (myself included) won't vote because it doesn't matter who we vote for, our vote does not matter. You make the election based on popular vote, and more people would be encouraged to vote.
Candidates already focus on cities and most populous states, so I don't really know how going by the popular vote would change anything. I just believe popular vote is a much more accurate representation of how Americans feel.
The internet is a terrific new forum for politics. But how important to the candidate would be the 64 votes from Podunk, Wyoming against the 2 million votes from Los Angeles and the 4 million votes from New York City? If you're from LA, do you really care about the bridges being built in Wyoming, or about funding libraries in rural areas? Even if you do care, are those issues more important than funding public transportation in Los Angeles? Or keeping water available and prices for it down in Los Angeles? What happens when you go to popular vote is that issues in big cities like New York or Los Angeles will outweigh the issues of Topeka, KS or Minnetonka, MN. Voters in more urban areas become more important than voters in rural areas. Urban issues drive the campaigns, which was one of the fears of the Founding Fathers that caused them to set up the electoral college to begin with.
If you are going to aggregate the 2 million and the 4 million, let's throw in the many millions from the thousands of Podunks.
I agree that the candidates will go to the metropolitan areas, but I also believe that knowing that their vote will count in the grand total will bring out more voters across the country.
And improved access to candidates digitally is eons removed from 200 years ago when news traveled by horseback. Immediacy is readily available across the country.
Actually, many of your cons are actually pros. In fact, with all due respect, none of them make sense to me.
One of the main reasons for the electoral college is a check & balance to guard against a “favorite son” candidate(s) from a particular state or region piling up popular votes in an unusual manner and thereby not actually representing the country as a majority throughout the entirety of the nation. It also ensures that a potential president reaches out to all people, and not just a focused area.
For example, let’s say a political ticket consists of a popular person from the deep south and one from New York or California and the other ticket has people from Alaska & Wyoming. The one ticket from the popular areas may be so numerous in a skewed way that it overwhelms the votes from the rest of the country. In other words, 6 or 7 states could literally carry the entire nation.
I will grant you that throughout our history the electoral college has only occasionally been appropriate, but it is nonetheless a valuable check & balance that was wisely set up by our founding fathers and could potentially come into play even in these days.
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