US Popular Vote

[cnn.com]
Oregon Democratic Gov. Kate Brown signed a bill Wednesday that would grant the state's electoral college votes to the winner of the national popular vote, her office confirmed.

        Brandon WilliamsCraig
        January 15 at 3:25 PM ·
        Texas next!
            Fred Dews: Hope we abolish it someday. A relic that never worked as intended.
            Allen Lambright: Fred Dews why do you say that?
            Fred Dews: Allen Lambright Because it hasn't. It was designed in an era when the wise men who created it didn't anticipate party faction would divide them, which after Washington's presidency faction immediately did, rendering the elite filtering theory of the EC already antiquated.

Two elections, 1800 and 1824, were thrown to the House because of EC failings.

In 5 elections, the popular vote winner lost b/c of the EC (1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, 2016).

The "but it protects the interests of small states" argument is largely just an ex post facto justification of why the founders created it in the first place. Hamilton had that somewhat in mind, but the real divide in 1787 was slave and non-slave states, not big vs small.

The EC actually does NOTHING to promote the electoral interests of small states anyway. How many times do the presidential candidates visit Delaware, or Montana? There are more Republican voters in California than in Montana, and more Democratic voters in Texas than in Delaware. So, abolishing the EC and opening the presidential election back up to a direct election would mean candidates would go everywhere they thought they could get votes--including the small states they rarely, if ever, visit.

It is, in my view, useless, archaic, and undemocratic.

        Allen Lambright: Fred Dews great explanation

        Brandon WilliamsCraig: Fred Dews Beautifully and briefly put. Facebook is a private graveyard for discussions of real ideas. May I move this to my public website?
        Fred Dews: Brandon WilliamsCraig Thanks. Yes.

        Allen Lambright: Doesn’t the winner of the state’s popular vote get to decide who is represented at the electoral college? Or is this agreement (not law) changing that? I’m trying to grasp how a candidate would spend more time in Oregon? I would spend more time in the most populated states.
        Caleb Grayson: don’t need the college where they can choose to not go with the votes of their constituents, but do need the electoral vote system.
        it’d be interesting to see something like a midwest coalition where if you win the majority of popular votes from say NE KS ND SD then you get electoral all 4 states even if you lost in one of them.
        but it’s stupid if a small state gives their electoral votes proportional to their popular votes. it just guts their political power.

        John Abbe Last June. Just a few more states to go, but they will be tough. https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/state-status
Status of National Popular Vote Bill in Each State
nationalpopularvote.com