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No country still uses an electoral college − except the US
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this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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There's currently about 5 to 7 swing states because that's currently how all the other areas vote, and those change a lot more often than population by state. By your argument of doing away with the electoral college, California, new York, Texas, and Florida would decide the elections and no one running for office would care about doing anything in about 40 states.
Areas with larger populations would have more influence, because there are more people there to represent. That's how democracy works. It's not, I don't know, landocracy.
But every vote would be equal, so there would be more incentive than there is now to campaign across a wider cross section of people, including in less populated areas, because as it is now, the majority of those areas are in safe states where there is zero advantage whatsoever to a politician trying to win their votes.
You only think in short terms. You have a problem now, so you want it changed now. Later, it will turn into a bigger problem and you'll want it changed again, only it will be harder.
You think the answer to get democrats to win is to change a process to something that would currently benefit democrats. There's no reason to believe that it would continue to benefit democrats after the change, and it also doesn't get rid of the 2 party system, because while the demols are a bit better overall for most of the country, both parties are still bought and owned by the wealthy. The rich have been on a downward tax paying slide for the last 75 years, regardless of who was in office.
It wouldn't fix the system at all but it would still be a move in the right direction.
I have no idea how this could be called "thinking short term" or how getting rid of the electoral college would "turn into a bigger problem later." It's possible that at some point in the future, it could benefit Republicans, somehow, but only if a majority of the people were voting Republican. There is never going to be a situation where I would miss the electoral college, lol, get rid of it and it's gone forever and we can continue addressing other ways our elections are messed up.