Some words on abolishing the Electoral College

[sraun]

Some people campaign for abolishing the Electoral College in favor of a straight popular vote. The most common reason I've heard for this is because it will get rid of swing states where most of the campaigning will happen, and get more widely spread attention.

I believe this is false. The top nine states by population - CA, TX, NY, FL, IL, PA, OH, MI & GA - contain approximately 50% of the US population. If you add in the next eight states - NC, NJ, VA, WA, MA, IN, AZ & TN - you're up to about 69% of the total US population. So, 17 states have over two-thirds of the US population. (BTW, TN is last state that individually has at least 2% of the total US population.) The bottom 33 states have 21% of the US population - how much attention are those 33 states going to get?

Without the electoral college, the vast majority of campaigning - and campaign promising! - is going to be in those top 17 states, mostly in the top 9. Abolishing the Electoral College would just re-define the swing states to be those top nine states, permanently.

There's an interest set of maps at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/ - they include a map where the states are sized proportional to population, and proportional to electoral college votes.

Comments

[mishalak]

Do the candidates for President of Brazil or Mexico only campaign in the biggest cities? This is a serious question that I do not know the answer to rather than a criticism of your point. Rather than just speculating perhaps the way other large democracies that use some form of national election rather than 50 state contests should be investigated.

Also, other than the swing states of Colorado, Nevada, and New Hampshire can you name one of those other 33 states that got much of any attention?

I am not entirely convinced that a pure winner take all popular vote is a better system than the one we have, but the one we have is clearly less than ideal. Republican votes in Hawaii and Democratic votes in Idaho might as well not count at all when it comes to the presidency.

Personally, given the difficulty in changing the constitution I think that some sort of reform of the Electoral College rather than its abolition might be a good idea. Make the vote proportional in each state. But I would need to do actual research before I committed myself to any particular idea.

This is not just about George W. Bush's non-majority win for me. It is about the possibility of one side of the nation being so upset by a close loss that it results in civil disorder. I want a system that picks a winner in a way that the vast majority see as fair even if they do not like the result, and right or wrong the Electoral College is not it.