For those calling for the abolishment of the electoral college, here is one simple question.

[etherealtruth]

98. Again, your reasoning is flawed

Last edited Thu Nov 24, 2016, 11:25 PM - Edit history (1)

If one could pick up an extra 100,000 to 200,000 (a tiny fraction of available votes) votes by visiting 5-6 extra states, you may gain 1,000,000 votes; if you can pick up 200,000 -500,000 extra votes in populous states that generally (as a whole) vote the opposite of your party you can gain a one million to several million vote advantage.

Candidates of all parties would likely be more present in all of the populous states because the potential of net overall gains would be great.

Your example is too simplistic and over estimates cost (which there would be a potential net loss) and underestimates net gains.

A more apt example would be one in which you need 20-gallons of gas, but are allowed to buy gas in 5-gallon increments. You could buy 5-gallons of gas at the corner and use an unappreciable amount of gas in the journey and achieve a net gain of 5-gallons of gas over the course of 4 days and sustain no net losses ... or... you could buy 5-gallons of gas at five different stations in one day but lose one gallon of gas driving to each new station. If one is facing time constraints (such as in an election) the relative inefficiency of losing one gallon of gas per every five brings you to your goal. You have encountered a loss, but your net gain significantly out weighs your loss.

If one is opposed to electing the president through a direct democratic process and prefers something other than equally weighted votes your arguments make sense. I prefer the concept of equally weighted votes.

We could increase the total number of electors to be more representative of the population. 1 elector per 100,000 residents could be fairly representative and result in ~3,500 electors and we could choose the number of electoral votes to be 2,700. The system would become obsolete with population growth and changes and eventually would become totally unrepresentative, as it is now. On edit to add: any change in the number of electoral votes requires a constitutional amendment

Again your arguments are based on the preference that a POTUS NOT be democratically elected (the system we have now).

I would much prefer a system where the president is elected through a direct democratic process