On your logic, I can select any 16 million out of the 80 million Democratic 2020 voters, and accuse whichever states add up to that 16 million of “determin[ing] the outcome in most cases”. I can pick big ones, small ones, ones full of fat people, ones full of poor people, the most/least educated, and complain about how those people are running the country into the ground.
Well, DUH. They ALL “determine the outcome in most cases”. Without any given swath of 16 million voters, the other 64 million are SOL in every single election. That’s how elections work.
What we currently have is a Rube-Goldberg contraption that doesn’t even actually advantage the small states - I live in one, Connecticut, and I can assure you no one campaigned HERE in 2020 - it just makes the entire election hinge on a couple hundred thousand votes in whichever states are large and particularly closely-split in that particular year.
If anything, winner-take-all right NOW hands a bunch of EC votes to the largest states - NY, TX, PA, CA, OH - based on large swathes of voters who didn’t actually vote for the party that wins their state.
That’s no way to run an advanced democracy, let alone a republic that we wish to yield predictable and sensible results.
So here’s the thing, even if we scrap the electoral college and nothing else we will still have elections determined by a few hundred thousand people in most cases. The “swing “ states will still be a focus. Now you may actually see campaign stops in tiny Connecticut but it’ll be more of a get out the vote vibe than trying to convert anyone politically. I would love to see the vote itself reformed, maybe a preference vote? But that’s a different thread.
I think it really depends on what replaces the EC and/or WTA.
We could technically keep the EC and do a number of alternative schemes: (1) apportion to Congressional districts, with the two Senatorial votes going to each state's statewide winner, (2) apportion to EC districts, (3) proportionalize each state's EC delegation by the statewide vote, and so on... most likely, the states themselves would choose a mix of methods.
And each of those will have a different set of incentives. #1 and #2 would see most campaigning in the least-populous districts, since they're the easiest to flip. #3 would see more campaigning in states where marginal EVs were considered to be on the line. And the "mix" scenario would be pretty chaotic.
Abolishing the EC itself is such a high bar that it's far more worth discussing these other schemes than contemplating a popular vote, let alone debating implementing one with FPTP vs. RCV or Approval. And I don't think the NIPVC would be held up as constitutional by the current conservative-dominated SCOTUS.
So here’s the thing, even if we scrap the electoral college and nothing else we will still have elections determined by a few hundred thousand people in most cases. The “swing “ states will still be a focus. Now you may actually see campaign stops in tiny Connecticut but it’ll be more of a get out the vote vibe than trying to convert anyone politically. I would love to see the vote itself reformed, maybe a preference vote? But that’s a different thread.
I think it really depends on what replaces the EC and/or WTA.
We could technically keep the EC and do a number of alternative schemes: (1) apportion to Congressional districts, with the two Senatorial votes going to each state's statewide winner, (2) apportion to EC districts, (3) proportionalize each state's EC delegation by the statewide vote, and so on... most likely, the states themselves would choose a mix of methods.
And each of those will have a different set of incentives. #1 and #2 would see most campaigning in the least-populous districts, since they're the easiest to flip. #3 would see more campaigning in states where marginal EVs were considered to be on the line. And the "mix" scenario would be pretty chaotic.
Abolishing the EC itself is such a high bar that it's far more worth discussing these other schemes than contemplating a popular vote, let alone debating implementing one with FPTP vs. RCV or Approval. And I don't think the NIPVC would be held up as constitutional by the current conservative-dominated SCOTUS.