Had Hillary won the Electoral College and not the "popular vote" ...

[ottootto]

A successful nationwide presidential campaign of polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, with every voter equal, would be run the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. The big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami do not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida. In the 4 states that accounted for over two-thirds of all general-election activity in the 2012 presidential election, rural areas, suburbs, exurbs, and cities all received attention—roughly in proportion to their population.

The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states, including polling, organizing, and ad spending) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every voter is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.

With National Popular Vote, when every voter is equal, everywhere, it makes sense for presidential candidates to try and elevate their votes where they are and aren't so well liked. But, under the state-by-state winner-take-all laws, it makes no sense for a Democrat to try and do that in Vermont or Wyoming, or for a Republican to try it in Wyoming or Vermont.

The main media at the moment, TV, costs much more per impression in big cities than in smaller towns and rural area. Candidates get more bang for the buck in smaller towns and rural areas.

 

[ottootto]

Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 was correct when he said
"The nation as a whole is not going to elect the next president,"
“The presidential election will not be decided by all states, but rather just 12 of them.

Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.

With the end of the primaries, without the National Popular Vote bill in effect, the political relevance of 70% of all Americans was finished for the presidential election.

In the 2016 general election campaign

Over half (57%) of the campaign events were held in just 4 states (Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio).

Virtually all (94%) of the campaign events were in just 12 states (containing only 30% of the country's population).

 

[ottootto]

Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .

Issues of importance to 38 non-battleground states are of so little interest to presidential candidates that they don’t even bother to poll them individually.

Charlie Cook reported in 2004:
“Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling [the then] 18 battleground states.”

Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that [then] more than 2/3rds of Americans were ignored in the 2008 presidential campaign, said in the Washington Post on June 21, 2009:
“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”

Over 87% of both Romney and Obama campaign offices were in just the then 12 swing states. The few campaign offices in the 38 remaining states were for fund-raising, volunteer phone calls, and arranging travel to battleground states.

 

[ottootto]

Because of state-by-state winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution. . .

In 2000, 537 popular votes in Florida determined that the candidate who had 537,179 less national popular votes would win.

Less than 80,000 votes in 3 states determined the 2016 election, where there was a lead of over 2,8oo,ooo popular votes nationwide.

Wisconsin’s voter-ID law reduced turnout by 200,000 votes. Donald Trump won the state by only 22,748 votes.

Since World War II, a shift of a few thousand votes in 1, 2, or 3 states would have elected a 2nd-place candidate in 6 of the 18 presidential elections

 

[gwb-trading]

The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States.

Voters in the biggest cities in the US are almost exactly balanced out by rural areas in terms of population and partisan composition.

16% of the U.S. population lives outside the nation's Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Rural America has voted 60% Republican. None of the 10 most rural states matter now.

16% of the U.S. population lives in the top 100 cities. They voted 63% Democratic in 2004.

The population of the top 50 cities (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 15% of the population of the United States.

The rest of the U.S., in suburbs, divide almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats.

Can you provide the source for the figures you cite above.

 

[jem]

you keep quoting history as if you are correcting what I am saying.

What I am saying is what you are showing.

The founders set up the system to avoid letting big population centers dominate the country.

Therefore we have a state by state election with an electoral college. Presidents are not elected by tallying up the national vote and giving the election to the person with the most votes because of CA and NY.

We are a constitutional republic are we not?
There is a reason for that. A major reason was to avoid mob rule. The smaller states would not have consented to a union if the big population centers could dominate them.

You see germany is having to give away billions to keep greece in line.
everyone learns its no fun to be ruled by a big remote disconnected central system of financially compromised politicians.
They have to have to buy the the mob off so you can screw the tax payers.
Our founders tried to avoid that. The progressives have been trying to undo our system ever since. For instance election of Senators has allowed the senators to be bribed by K street instead of being responsible to their citizens.

Constitutionally, the number of electors in each state is equal to the number of members of Congress to which the state is entitled,while the 23rd Amendment grants the District of Columbia the same number of electors as the least populous state, currently three. There are 538 electoral votes.

In 2012, under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), voters in just 60 counties and DC could have elected the president in 2012 – even though they represented just 26.3% of voters

Being a constitutional republic does not mean we should not and cannot guarantee the election of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes. The candidate with the most votes wins in every other election in the country.

Guaranteeing the election of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes and the majority of Electoral College votes (as the National Popular Vote bill would) would not make us a pure democracy.

Pure democracy is a form of government in which people vote on all policy initiatives directly.

Popular election of the chief executive does not determine whether a government is a republic or democracy.

The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes used by 2 states, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by states of winner-take-all or district winner laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.

The Constitution does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for how to award a state's electoral votes

The National Popular Vote bill is 61% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency in 2020 to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by changing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.

The bill retains the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections, and uses the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes. It ensures that every voter is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.

Every voter, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter in the state counts and national count.

 

[TreeFrogTrader]

Look, there's a way to change it. Get an amendment. There is a legal process to do so.

If there is enough of a popular push, it might make its way through. Short of that, the rest of this discussion is rather academic.

This is an area where the dems are flucked because so many of the state legislatures are republican now and one of the means of amendment is through 3/4 of the state legislatures. The dems like to think that the problem dems have is a dud candidate and a few million popular votes. No. It is greater than that. The democratic party is out of power all the way down through the state elected offices. If there had been some blip where trump won but the states had strong democratic control then you could try to advance an amendment. Problem is, they are out of power at the state level too. Not a good strategy to try to advance an amendment when you know it will not prevail because it is not something people will want to do again every year. If the dems were smart - AND LET US STIPULATE THAT THAT IS A BIG "IF"- they would put a hundredth of the energy that it would take to even get a vote on an amendment and put it into holding their noses and campaigning in states with deplorables.

 

[TreeFrogTrader]

The National Popular Vote bill would replace state winner-take-all laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), in the enacting states, to a system guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes for, and the Presidency to, the candidate getting the most popular votes in the entire United States.

The bill retains the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections, and uses the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes. It ensures that every voter is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.

The bill would take effect when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—270 of 538.

All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes among all 50 states (and DC)—thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.

Okay, go for it. Let us know when it has been adopted.

 

[polaris]

Yeah,a bunch of empty land should override 3 million voters

Stop acting like an impetuous child. Why don't you get yourself together and f*ck off to that perfect place that you have in mind?

You can't afford to move to Venezuela?

Then I suggest your life is in sh!t state, Tony.

 

[TreeFrogTrader]

Yeah,a bunch of empty land should override 3 million voters

Yes. the minimal threshold of electoral votes offered to states as a condition of joining the union should be maintained. Adjustments for population should be made and that is already being done. That is why California has 55 electoral votes and Wyoming has 3. Unlike your ilk, the Framers were trying to make a functioning system of united states. They did not know that the goal was to get Hillary Clinton elected. Most likely this is because Jefferson and Madison were not as smart as you are - or perhaps they just were not on the dnc mailing list.