Popular Vote vs Electoral College

Well, uh, it's EvC and we do that here?Besides, I was tired of Kleinman.

And what do think that will lead to? The 2 coastal areas ARE the MAJOR voting population of the nation. Of course there is a "split". Some red some blue. Some undecided thus the schmoozing of those voters.Remember we're talking about a popular vote for president. States don't matter.
You have $1000 to schmooze with. Are you going to spend that chasing 15 votes in Manhattan KS or 10,000 in Manhattan, NY? Exactly. Look at swing states and battleground states from past elections. Lots of interior states (Arizona, Michigan, Illinois). That's because the state's electoral votes are the prize. There are no battleground states in a popular vote scheme.When the popular vote is the prize there is no need to chase sparse populations in less populated areas. You chase the major populations on the coasts where the majority of votes are.

In today's world then, as usual, it depends on whether California is in play or is it well set. If prospects and polls are good for a party then it's not a battleground state. So who has the largest electoral vote that's within 3% differential? That is a battleground state, like Illinois or Michigan. So choose a different word. No you cannot outlaw a candidate from giving a speech or hosting a community talk or a neighborhood bbq. This is still America.

Today's world is electoral college, not popular vote. I wasn't addressing pop vote.Your question from Message 89

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But in a proportional EC system, which ones are swing states? Do you schmooze the 3 elector state of Wyoming or the 55 elector state of California?

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That's what I was answering. Who's talking democracy? We are a republic. At the time of the formation the political dynamics were different. If I don't get my 2 senators then you don't get your republic. The majority can be harsh and I want protection.In a popular election for president, no EC votes or by state votes, just national totals, there would not be any battleground states. The battle will be for the hearts and minds of the voters regardless of location. That means the coasts 150 million voters will be the major portion of the 200 million national totals.Now, in a modified electoral college, I find it more than appropriate to give the two at-large votes to the overall popular winner in the state. They did get the majority of the states vote. The rest going to the congressional district winners. For 2020, Arizona would have had 4 votes for red and 7 for blue. I was happy with the 11 blue but the modified result is more accurate.The major issue for us is how to get this one very doable change made. A wholesale re-write of the constitution (long, long overdue) is not going to happen. They should do that regardless but not as an enforced monopoly.I'm a free speech nut. Let the bozos and the liars and the good guys talk till their vocal chords fall out. If we, the people, aren't good enough to notice the difference then that's on us, not so much the system.

Pure majority vote versus elected officials constrained by checks and balances.Xongsmith mentioned that 2 senators per state regardless of population was undemocratic.He's right, from a pure democracy point of view, but The USofA was formed as a republic with 2 senators per state as a check on the majority so we don't care.

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The Founding Fathers of the United States often criticised direct democracy, which in their view often came without the protection of a constitution enshrining inalienable rights; James Madison argued, especially in The Federalist No. 10, that what distinguished a direct democracy from a republic was that the former became weaker as it got larger and suffered more violently from the effects of faction, whereas a republic could get stronger as it got larger and combats faction by its very structure.

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Democracy - Wikipedia

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hmmm ... maybe because of a flaw in the process we've known about for 200+ years and have been too stupid to fix? Maybe because of the gaping hole in the electoral college that we have been talking about?The system wasn't set up to keep would-be tyrants out. The EC was not "the very thing that was installed to prevent a looney from winning". That was not a consideration in its formation. Nor could it ever have that effect.The framers knew (read the Federalist Papers) the passions of the people and knew no system could keep a groundswell of stupid from election. Other structures in the constitution were to address that. To paraphrase Ben Franklin: Impeachment was not tightly defined so the nation wouldn't have to suffer a nincompoop.That is where the republican senate failed the nation.We have more than one gaping hole in this constitution to fill.

If you find it a problem then get off this self-imposed mindset of winner-take-all. The reality would be quite different and so would the political strategy.Do you know what a swing state, a battleground state, is? Do you know what gives a state that designation?

I think you confuse intent with side effect. The EC is not there to give interior states a share of the largess of political limelight. Battleground states, internal or coastal, develop as a result of that specific years election's own political dynamic.In every election I looked up there are a number of the interior states garnering extra special attention from both candidates. So, yes, in the absence of any other data, right now, our electoral college scheme creates battleground states, many not coastal, where candidates flock. This has the effect, not the intent, of giving more states more political influence.This is contrast to a direct popular election for president where states don't count and only density of population determines where the campaigns would focus.

Don't quote me on this but I think I remember Thomas Jefferson once wrote he expected a constitutional convention of the states to rewrite the whole thing every 25 years.We're late.

That was the original intent (Federalist Papers #68) but within the first 50 years things changed when states legislated their electoral votes, forcibly, to the majority winner in the state instead of proportionally or allowing electors any options in voting.The ancient history and their unenlightened ways are not the issue. We know better today. The question is what can we do about it today. This EC problem, regardless of the ancient history that got us here, can be solved by the states legislating proportionality in their EC votes.The more aggressive options are to have an amendment, or, hold a constitutional convention and rewrite the whole thing.The major impediment to either of these is that we have republicans.