Okay Behemoth79, let consider this then: Lets say that popular vote is a reality and you happen to be a Presidential Candidate. Wyoming has less than 500,000 people in it. It still has a lot of important needs, especially in terms of its wilderness areas, mining and agriculture. But honestly, 500,000 votes out of 290,000,000. That's 0.1724% of the vote, why the hell should you care about them?? Why even bother campaigning there at all?

Originally Posted by godofthunder9010

Okay Behemoth79, let consider this then: Lets say that popular vote is a reality and you happen to be a Presidential Candidate. Wyoming has less than 500,000 people in it. It still has a lot of important needs, especially in terms of its wilderness areas, mining and agriculture. But honestly, 500,000 votes out of 290,000,000. That's 0.1724% of the vote, why the h**l should you care about them?? Why even bother campaigning there at all?

i would've thought that that is where the local representative comes in, the sentor or congressman, isn't it THEIR job to make sure their home state is looked after?
i wouldn't expect the national leader to look after a state more...just because they voted for him/her...

wyoming only has three electoral votes. why should any candidate care? besides, its not like any candidate spends any considerable time in wyoming anyway. also think of it this way, are there more republicans in California or people in wyoming? the republican vote in California and even the democratic vote in texas or another red state becomes null and void. that is why teh electoral college needs to be done away with.

There's much more than electoral votes. Vermont has only three as well, however, we have one of the most senior and powerful Senators in Patrick Leahy and Jim Jeffords is not without some clout himself. Of course our Congressman, Bernie Sanders is a bit of a joke. Still, not a bad powerbase for a tiny state with only 600,000 people and no large scale industry.

what tends to happen is that the smaller parties (who tend to be further left or right than their bigger brothers) exert some pressure in exchange for being part of a coalition govt.

Some pressure my , the Alliance party exerted far more power than their 7% of the vote gave them in the first Labour term, United and the Greens did the same in the second Labour term as did New Zealand first in the previous National government.

All MMP has proven in terms of New Zealand is that the minor party in the government effectively blackmails the majority party in return for being decimated at the next election.

so in NZ's case and IMO for our up comming election, i like a labour Govt with helen clark as PM. but i also like the green party for being the only party being honest and sticking to it's guns

so i'll vote green on my party vote (as they are reasonably small and have almost Zero chance of becoming the ruling party)
and vote fot my local labour party rep.

I cant bring myself to vote Labour, while I tend to lean toward Labour policies I am not over enthused about the direction this government is taking, at the rate she is going we will be leasing our defence forces out to pay for a new museum somewhere.
However you couldn't get me to vote for Don Brash either so I suspect I will vote for my local Labour candidate but pass on the party vote as I dont like any of them.

I say do away with the electoral college, as it's been said before, it had it's purpose before, but with modern technology, it's defunct. As for large cities becoming center pieces, there's already that element with "Swing states" that presidential candidates focus on.
Already large regions of the country are ignored. At least under the popular vote system, the candidates would likely visit a larger area of the country (NYC, LA, Boston etc) rather than just the swing state area. And combined with modern technology, those regions issues could be discussed IN that region, more of that areas topics could be answered, rather than just broad-spectrum answers on taxes, medicare, and so on, and then broadcast via television (just like the debates) to the other states.

I think switching to popular vote would do this country some good.

My opinion is that electoral vote gives each voter more voting power when the popularity between the two (most of the time there are only two leading candidates anyway) is not very close. In an election where each candidate has close to 50% of the popularity, popular vote would give individuals more voting power (your vote could decide who wins and who loses). However, in an election where the popularity between the candidates are further apart (let's say, 55-45), electoral college system magnifies the power of the less popular candidate. Let's use the Wyoming state as an example: Assume nationally the less popular candidate actually has more popularity in Wyoming, 52-48; In popular vote, if no one in the state voted, it wouldn't have mattered because this is pretty much a push for either candidate (NEITHER candidate would really care about this state). However, in an electoral college vote, the winner of the state takes all the electoral votes (3), which virtually translates to 100% of the popular vote. This then is no longer a push, one candidate definitely did benefit from the result. Factor in other states in the same situation, the possibility of having an anomaly (like in 2000) can actually occur (granted not often) -- which may not be a flaw, but a proof that the system is working.

Originally Posted by behemoth79

wyoming only has three electoral votes. why should any candidate care? besides, its not like any candidate spends any considerable time in wyoming anyway. also think of it this way, are there more republicans in California or people in wyoming? the republican vote in California and even the democratic vote in texas or another red state becomes null and void. that is why teh electoral college needs to be done away with.

I grew up there and still remember George Bush Sr and his multiple visits to our state. Yes, he most certainly did campaign there. So did Reagan. Democrats will drop in on Jackson Hole (the only part of Wyoming that is potentially a liberal stronghold) but that's about it. THEY definietly do not bother with Wyoming. George Sr also appears to have really liked Wyoming's hunting and wilderness options and came back for a retreat there on many occasions. I haven't lived there at all since 1994 though, so I can't tell you what campaigning has or has not been done since that time. I doubt that it has been entirely passed over since I've lived there.

Personally, I'm in favor of the idea of Electoral Votes being distributed based on districts and such. There's a term for it but I can't remember what it was. Give the electoral votes that represent the Senators to the overall popular vote of the state in question. All other votes are sorted by popular vote within their congressional districts.

The reason for the Electoral College is the same reason that the Senate exists: making sure that the little guy isn't going to get overlooked or their needs overlooked.

those for keeping the electoral college still fail to defend the aspect of those in strongly red or strongly blue states not having their votes represented. what will be done for those people?

Originally Posted by behemoth79

those for keeping the electoral college still fail to defend the aspect of those in strongly red or strongly blue states not having their votes represented. what will be done for those people?

Read my last post.