65% of U.S. adults say the way the president is elected should be changed so that the winner of the popular vote nationwide wins the presidency.

  • aidan@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    What do you mean? They do matter? A democrat doesn’t campaign in California not because it doesn’t matter but because they know most Californians will already vote for them, same with Republicans in Texas

    • Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      They don’t matter because most states use winner take all for their EC votes. Every additional vote past 50% is absolutely worthless, as is any vote cast in a state where there’s no chance to hit 50%.

      With a popular vote system, every vote would still be worth something. It would be worth a politician’s while to campaign in California because even if they’d normally get 60%, as it’s still worth it to drive higher turnout or try to increase that to 65%. It’d be worth going to a hostile state because a vote is a vote. It doesn’t matter where it comes from; they’d all have equal worth.

      • aidan@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Every vote past 50% just then wouldn’t matter at a national level. Yes it would increase the total number of votes that voted for the winning candidate, but it would also centralize power more into cities.