the Republicans won't need the Electoral College.

Voter suppression goes back to the 1840s. Getting in power to get what you want is a GOP specialty.

I can't even imagine how many more votes she'd have received without voter suppression ( and Russian intervention, plus some other factors.

The only states they would need to care about is California, Texas, New York, Penn, Florida, Ohio, maybe Illinois I guess. Sure not most of the U.S.

Maybe since the constitution would have to be changed, change it where the state legislatures elect the U.S. senators and reps.

Might as well make it where like it was originally only property owners and tax payers could vote in the state elections. Then the boss Hoggs would be the ones at the polls. No political ads. No having to brave the long lines in snow and rain.

Heaven on earth.

But in the third world where they are too stupid to have our system, the only ones who CAN'T vote are those who have ink on their fingers meaning they had already voted.

As it stands now, presidential campaigns don't need to focus on states that are solidly blue (New York & California) or solidly red. With the electoral college it all comes down to swing states that could tip either way.

Voters in states considered a lock are disincentivized to vote, and that affects downticket races.

The Electoral College is an anachronism from the days when it was necessary for actual electors to make their way to the capitol for multiple votes.

Nevertheless, it didn't take long for states to subvert the EC system. The "winner take all" application was not mentioned in the Constitution. States started doing that to become a bigger prize, and as we have seen narrow margins of victory in a handful of medium states can change the outcome.

Whenever I hear someone complaining about any political system that favors the big cities or states (electoral college, senate, etc) I have one simple answer for them. "You mean where the actual voters are?".

More populous areas should have more representation because they have more people (duh).

But since you made the argument, I think the opposite is actually true. Since the states are mostly winner take all, the only places that get any attention at all are the swing states. This marginalizes red votes in red states and blue votes in blue states.

Popular voting would mean every vote would count no matter where they were.

Of course I will never live to see it happen but it should change.

of vastly different states not just a mass of people living as one group. But I am usually wrong, what with being almost 70 and retarded (aspergers).

agreeing to give up a portion of their powers to a federal government. They made those powers quite limited and gave themselves many checks and bludgeons to make sure the federal government didn't usurp the rights they didn't give away.

The history of our government has been the steady realization of that original fear as the federal government has gotten more and more powerful taking more and more powers from the states.

It has gotten to the point where you can question why we even have states today?

Of pledging their electoral votes to the winner of the state OR the winner of the national popular vote. This would give us a hedge, say if tRump or some other deplorable in the future would be in the opposite situation as last election, winning popular vote but not the electoral vote, we could fall back on the electoral college to keep them out of office.
We need to keep our options open and I really think that if we would have mounted a larger and much more vigorous prolonged protest we could have changed the minds of enough electors to give the election to Hillary.
If tRump is still in office and runs in 2020 we literally need to shut our country down to prevent a second term, we have the numbers and the power, let's use it, we can't afford to wait to change the constitution.

But when Wyoming has seven times per capita the electoral votes that California has, one must call Total Bullshit.

I read somewhere that it was a Slave State Deal, mollifying the Slavers so they'd accept a post-Slavery US. That's effing grotesque.

... ended up casting their vote for someone else OTHER than Clinton (and Kaine)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_electors_in_the_United_States_presidential_election,_2016#Validated

Agreeing that the Electoral College was an idea that made sense 200 years ago, but maybe not now.

But I wouldn't want to abolish it unless we had a REAL replacement plan ready that is fair to all Americans. If there's no fair replacement for the Electoral College, you can bet the right-wingers will figure out how to cheat to their advantage.

It would have to be impossible for right-wingers to cheat the system, otherwise there's no reason to change it.

Just sayin'

...the right-wingers would never go for it unless they think they can cheat somehow. If they can't hack the popular vote they'll stick with the Electoral Collage. They've already got that "beat."

It's so easy with the voting machines, they've already got them rigged. That's why they wanted the machines to replace the paper ballots. We can fix gerrymandering but we have to work on it right now, before the next redistricting push in 2020.

After gerrymandering is fixed and we can get a majority back in Congress, then we can talk about abolishing the Electoral College. Always remember that the GOP can't win unless they cheat.

in Democratic strongholds.

The thing that bothers me most about the electoral college is that all electoral votes are rewarded no how many people show up at the polls. Theoretically, even registered voter in New York could vote and their 29 electoral votes would go to the winner, but one person could show up to the polls in Florida and its 29 EVs would go to its winner.

Trump won Texas with a mere 52% of the popular vote, but we knew he would. How many Clinton supporters in Texas just didn't bother voting? Or Republicans in California for that matter? The Electoral College system discourages voting everywhere but swing states and that's just wrong.

I would be happy if every State was forced to go to proportional distribution of their delegates.

It would still be within the Constitution so I don't see why it would need an amendment. Yet it would more closely mimic the popular vote than anything we currently have now.

There would still be the possibility of having rounding errors but it would be much closer.

This seems like the most obvious solution to me. What am I missing?

The language about the the state legislatures choosing the distribution of the electors.

So it wouldn't require an amendment. Just the cooperation of every state legislature. How hard could that be?

Your point is well taken. It still seems like a more likely route than an outright removal of the EC but is still not going to happen.

You are also right that we can't allow the proportional allocation of big blue states if the red states aren't included.

Has anyone heard of this? If not, it's a multi-state agreement that will kick in when enough states to represent 270 Electoral votes sign onto the agreement. The Constitution provides for a means of assigning the number of Electoral votes that a state holds but is mute on how they are to award them to the various candidates. All states except two (Nebraska and Maine) have a 'winner take all' whereby the winner of the popular vote is given that states Electoral votes. The other two award them proportionally. So what will the NPVIC do? It commits the signatory states to award their Electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, EVEN IF THAT CANDIDATE LOST THE POPULAR VOTE IN THEIR STATE. So far, states representing 165 votes have signed on and the ACLU is making a push in all of the other states. This last election showed why the Electoral College does not work. We have had 5 times in our national history where the popular vote winner did not win the Presidency. Three of those times were through 1876, 2000 in a small margin (<600,000) and again last year by a WIDE margin. How many of you know that had 58,000 votes in Ohio had changed for Kerry in 2004, he would have won the Presidency even though G.W. was ahead by OVER 3,000,000 votes? I am certainly no fan of G.W.--but fair is fair and even though I voted for Kerry, I would have been just as pissed as I am today over tRump. Some people may say: "We've always done it that way". Sorry - change is painful and that argument doesn't hold water since change is necessary. Some may say, "That's unconstitutional!". Once again, the Constitution is mute on how the states are to award their votes and everything I've read from any source has no guidance. Although, with the current makeup of the Supremes, who knows how they'll rule if a challenge to the NPVIC hits their bench. Any comments? Read up on it! People in non-NPVIC states: Get behind it; call legislators and advocate for it; support the ACLU's efforts to pass it.

It is the most direct route to the desired outcome. However, I am dubious.

The chances of the party that would have won sitting idly by and allowing this to happen is nil. There would be a constitutional crisis amidst lawsuits and widespread discontent.

What we see as a work-around to an outdated system would be seen as a coup by half the Country. I am not sure that represents a valid path forward.

electoral college no longer serves the purpose for which it was intended. Needs to be abolished.

two elections in less than 20 years where the popular-vote loser became president? The Electoral College system is completely fucking broken.

they work as committee overseeing entire state not local districts.

It would take what 12-13 states to block that?

Here is a list of states that Trump won by greater than 10%:

1. Alabama
2. Arkansas
3. Idaho
4. Indiana
5. Iowa
6. Kansas
7. Kentucky
8. Louisiana
9. Mississippi
10. Missouri
11. Montana
12. Nebraska
13. North Dakota
14. Oklahoma
15. South Carolina
16. Tennessee
17. Utah
18. West Virginia
19. Wyoming

These are just states that went +10% for Trump. There could be more states who could/would vote against it too. It's a fun idea but there are much more productive uses of time like fighting redistricting and vote suppression.

Ridding this nation of this inherently undemocratic relic MUST be one of our top priorities when we take back the Senate & House.