Originally Posted by kane

Well, I guess I disgree. This seems to be the common argument for the electoral college but look at it this way. There are many states where one candidate has a huge lead over the other. For example in the last election Bush won about 65% of the vote in a handful of southern and midwest states. How much time do you think Kerry spent there knowing he had no chance? On the other side of the coin Kerry won 3-4 stats by the same margin. I doubt Bush spent much time in those states. However in California and Florida it was pretty close as it was in many states so I don't think any one candidate could go to either place and win all the votes.

Now imagine this. Say I am a democrat and I happen to live in Texas. Why should I even bother voting for president? I know Kerry has no shot in hell of winning the state so my vote doesn't matter or count. If it were a popular election my vote would actually count. I wonder how many people stay home on election day for that exact reason? With a popular election Kerry could have gone into Texas and rallied some of his supporters. Maybe he could have rounded up some extra support in other southern states from people who feel disenfranchised and don't vote because they know their state is going one way or the other. The same could have been for Bush. He could go places like New York and Vermont and maybe get more support. The modern electoral system alienates voters who's ideals are not the same as the majority of their state.

Another thought. Eliminating it could help to curb tampering. As it is right now we end up going red state, blue state then we have a couple of states that end up deciding it. Every election you hear about things that went on that were underhanded in that state. These things could be somewhat eliminated because it wouldn't matter who got the most votes in one state. Instead of having to do whatever you could to get every last little vote in one state where a few votes could win the whole thing, you would focus on the country as a whole. If there were tampering in one state and that caused the loss or gain of a few hundred votes, the impact that would have would be greatly diminished. Think of Florida in 2000. After all the recounts were finally done and chads were dealt with, Bush won by around 1500 votes. Those 1500 votes won him the election so they were worth their price in gold. In general election he would still have gotten those 1500 votes, but still lost by 500,000 so the those 1500 votes would not have been worth much at all. . . for that matter they would have been worth what every other vote was which is one vote.