Electoral College or Popular Vote?

[Oldiesfreak1854]

On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.  In all but four cases thus far (1824, 1876, 1888, and of course, 2000), the winner of the national popular vote also won the electoral college.  For all its flaws, it has worked relatively well for the past 220+ years, and it's the best system out there.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted, you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.

Not true.  Big states would be even more powerful than they are now under popular vote.  For example, a candidate could carry California, lose every other state, and still win the election because California has so many more people.

And pbrower, the suburban vote is not the swing vote.  Suburbanites are mostly Democrat, with exceptions for Minnesota, Orange County, CA, and much of the South.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted, you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.

Not true.  Big states would be even more powerful than they are now under popular vote.  For example, a candidate could carry California, lose every other state, and still win the election because California has so many more people.

Where to begin with this? How about by stating the fact that in 2012 California accounted for only about 10% of the nationwide popular vote? That means that even if Obama won 100% of the two-party vote in California, he'd still need to break about 45% in the rest of the country in order to win the nationwide popular vote. So it is excessively unlikely that a candidate would win California, lose every other state, and still win the popular vote.

It's still possible.  Let me give you an example: California currently has 55 electoral votes.  Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin currently have a combined 55 electoral votes.  If California votes for Candidate X and Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin all vote for candidate Y, then under the electoral college, they would be tied.  Under a direct popular vote, Candidate X would be far ahead because California has so many people.
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College for a very specific reason: to serve as a means of checks and balances between states.  I'm not saying it's an entirely fair system, and bigger states do have more power, but under a national popular vote, it would be even more disproportionately favorable to those states.