Quote:
Originally Posted by woj
you bring up a good point about the fact that many people end up not voting in states that are way blue or way red... deciding winner by popular vote would solve that problem, but at the same time it would concentrate all the political power in a few major cities, leaving rural areas and smaller states practically powerless...
so it's debatable which way is better, but if it worked fine for few hundred years, why change it now? Isn't a good rule of thumb "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"? Isn't the main reason why there is drama is because Hillary won popular vote? what if election results were reversed, would you still think it's a good idea, or would you lean towards keeping what worked for few hundred years as is?
yea, you are right, I looked at it wrong, Ohio did indeed in a way decide the election...  |
If the election results were reversed I would still be for removing the electoral college. I have felt this way for a long time. I just think it encourages corruption and it disenfranchises voters. Most of the time the system we have ends up working fine, but I just think we should do everything we can to get more people to vote and not alienate them.
As for candidates focusing their efforts on the population centers, I don't think that would happen as much as people think. When you look at the popular vote numbers from this election they are very close. They are reasonably close in the previous handful of elections as well. Candidates go where their voters are. Hillary won 61% of the vote in California. Trump got 34% and he didn't even campaign there. In Tennessee, Clinton got 35% of the vote and she never campaigned there. I think our society has become diverse enough politically that candidates will still be forced to carry out a national campaign in order to win and going to states that traditionally wouldn't could end up being a major strategy. If you told Hillary campaigning in Tennessee could net her another 250,000 votes, or you told Trump going to Oregon could get him that extra 250,000 I think they would jump at the chance of doing it.