If we switched to a national PV election system...

[DPKdebator]

...what would victorious state/county maps look like for both Republicans and Democrats? Where would they campaign where they normally wouldn't?

[DrScholl]

The maps would look exactly the same. You'd probably see Democrats coming to blue areas in red states to boost overall turnout (Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis etc).

[twenty42]

I'm not sure what would change demographically, but I could almost guarantee that every single presidential election would be a 2000-like debacle under a NPV system.

[SWE]

I'm not sure what would change demographically, but I could almost guarantee that every single presidential election would be a 2000-like debacle under a NPV system.

There hasn't been a single presidential election in US history where the popular vote was as close as Florida was in 2000, so I'm not sure why you're so confident in this?

[Knives]

I'm not sure what would change demographically, but I could almost guarantee that every single presidential election would be a 2000-like debacle under a NPV system.

How so?

Gore was a clear PV winner.

[Stranger in a strange land]

I'm not sure what would change demographically, but I could almost guarantee that every single presidential election would be a 2000-like debacle under a NPV system.

There hasn't been a single presidential election in US history where the popular vote was as close as Florida was in 2000, so I'm not sure why you're so confident in this?

I hear this argument a lot from EC advocates, but it's worth remembering that of the world's five most populous countries, four are democracies, and if Indonesia and Brazil can elect their presidents by direct popular vote, there's no good reason that the far richer and more developed U.S. couldn't.

[DPKdebator]

I'm not sure what would change demographically, but I could almost guarantee that every single presidential election would be a 2000-like debacle under a NPV system.

How so?

Gore was a clear PV winner.

I think he means that if an election is close, the recount efforts would be crazy since a candidate might want a recount *everywhere* he thinks he needs.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I'm not sure what would change demographically, but I could almost guarantee that every single presidential election would be a 2000-like debacle under a NPV system.

How so?

Gore was a clear PV winner.

the fact that you are so sure that Gore would have won the PV in this scenario is funny. That election is indeed  too close to call.


Besides even with PV if nobody gets over 50% of the vote the election gets decided by congress   

[Lord Wreath]

Slightly off-topic but still relevant...

People in the US who rail against the 'unfairness' of the EC really don't know how good their system is. Here in Australia, we use a form of AV which is meant to take into account people's 2nd, 3rd, 4th preferences and so on. While this system has meant that breakaway and third-parties haven't been able to split a major party and give it the the opposition (a la 1912 in the US), it has, despite its alleged 'fairness', resulted in even more PV winners losing the election than in the US!

Since 1919 (the first election with the AV), there have been 38 national elections, 6 of which have resulted in the loser of the PV winning the election (1940, 1954, 1961, 1969, 1990, 1998) - that's a rate of 16%. In the US, there have been 49 elections, 6 of which have resulted in the PV loser winning the election (1824, 1876, 1888, 1960, 2000, 2016) - a rate of 12%.

So this purportedly 'fairer' system we use has actually resulted in more times where the vote winner has lost the election than in the US, which is remarkable given the shorter time that we've used the system (not even 100 years).