Electoral College: any changes coming?

[Nym90]

I don't believe that the EC requires broad geographic support in order to win. Actually, I believe the opposite is true. With the EC, it is possible to narrowly win in one area of the country and get blown out in other areas, and win the election. That's not possible with the popular vote.

[Nym90]

Well, I admit I phrased that wrong. What I should've said is that it would be possible to win many states by narrow margins and lose many others by large margins, and win in the EC, but you could not win in the popular vote in this manner. In terms of regions, one could do it with two regions though, if a candidate won, say, all of the Northeastern and Midwestern states by narrow margins, they could win the election even if they got totally obliterated in the South and West. For an even more extreme example, the 11 largest states add up to 270 Electoral Votes, thus a candidate could theoretically win each of them by one vote and get no votes in the other 39 states, and they could win! However, one could not possibly win the popular vote with such a narrow geographic appeal.
I would say that the candidate who won half of the country by overwhelming margins and was competitive but lost narrowly in the other half of the country actually demonstrated much more geographic appeal, since they were at least competitive everywhere. It would be very hard for a candidate to win the popular vote if they lost by large margins in lots of states, but one could win the EC this way if they won by narrow margins in many large states.

[Nym90]

Yes, those 11 are in different regions, but has a candidate really demonstrated geographic appeal by only getting votes in 11 states?? The other candidate was at least competitive in the entire country, and didn't get blown out in 39 states.

Ok, I admit I didn't check the numbers on what regions you would need to win. But then the opposite is true, a candidate could win the South and West narrowly and win the election that way while getting blown out in the Northeast and Midwest. Since the winning candidate had appeal only in 2 regions and the loser was at least competitive in all 4 regions, I think that the popular vote winner who lost in the Electoral Vote actually demonstrated much wider geographic appeal.
Geographic appeal is obviously hard to define distinctly as a concept, but I'd say that a candidate who loses narrowly has demonstrated much greater breadth of appeal than one who gets blown out. The EC, however, fails to make this distinction at all.

[Nym90]

As someone who comes from a very rural area, perhaps my opinion will carry more weight with you than Migrendel's. I feel that the concept of one person, one vote is very important, and that's why the popular vote should decide elections instead of the Electoral College. It decides every other election in this country except for the Presidential Election, so what is it about the Presidential Election that makes it different? Why not implement an EC type system for all elections if it is such a good idea? All people should have their vote count equally no matter where they live. That's not saying screw urban people or screw rural people, that's just a common sense principle of equality in a democracy.
And you both have very good points about problems that exist in urban and rural areas. I've seen lots of both so I know what you both mean. However, I feel that it only makes sense to focus more attention on urban areas since more people live there.

[Nym90]

Yes, but if all the votes had been counted properly, Gore would have won. The way Gore wanted them to be counted was a flawed strategy.

Oh sure, bring out the old lie about the "liberal media" again...I remember seeing it getting quite a bit of press. The entire recount business was old news by then so one wouldn't expect it to be a huge story.