Just a thought experiment. I wish I had a good answer

It’s a false dilemma that’s been presented to you by GOP propagandists.

America’s two largest cities are NYC and LA:

NYC metro = 18.8 million
LA metro = 12.4 million

Even including their respective Metro areas, together they account for about 30 million, a small fraction of the total U.S. population of 340 million or so. So, a little less than 1/11 of the total population.

A nationwide popular vote means ***every vote counts equally.*** No more “battleground states.” No more nail-biters that turn on 11,000 votes here and there.

Just a straightforward national election like every other democratic country in the world has figured out how to do.

One man or woman, one vote. Wherever you live. Clean and decisive results every time. Democracy at its finest.

Of course that is far too simple for the Republican Party, whose only prayer of winning again at their current rate is to “win by losing” once again by losing the popular vote but winning the Electoral College narrowly.

*One man, woman or enby.

I live in a rural part of my small state and believe me, our elected officials in Boston rarely think of us. If we get rid of the electoral college and don't replace it with something that takes into account that rural voters matter too, it becomes a NY vs LA to elect the president. That is not an ideal situation either. While the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, the many must make sure that the few are take care of as well.

I realize the electoral college is racist in its origin, but even in bad laws, there can be a kernel of truth. To make every vote matter, how do you weigh the outsize populations of cities vs the rest of the country?

Perhaps banning gerrymandering is more important than getting rid of the Electoral College. I like the idea of determining disctricts boundaries using algorithms. Political parties have way too much power.

Gerrymandering is a blight on our republic, but presidential elections are state wide. My question is how do we eliminate the electoral college without writing off less populous states. Image only California and New York deciding every presidential election. Candidates would just ignore the smaller states and that’s not right just as those states having an outsized say under the current system.

The thing you never acknowledge is that it's not that simple. Our Federal system takes not only raw population into account, but also the fact that the *distribution* of the population hugely affects how people vote.

Once you take that key ethos away from the Presidency, how long until we start hearing, "bUt cOnGrEsS iSn'T dEmOcRaTiC" because the Senate, which EXCLUSIVELY represents equal states and yet often controls key aspects of Congress, is sticking up for the Wyoming's, Alaska's, and West Virginia's of our nation?

The Legislative and Executive branch are determined via a process that balances population with distribution EXTREMELY well. Don't like it? Nominate candidates who are better at attracting the attention of more Americans across different geopolitical groupings.

For the record...you Democrats missed a HUGE opportunity with Steve Bullock in the 2019 nominations. He was massively popular here in red Montana and would have been better at Biden's, "moderate, grounded American" schtick than Biden is himself.

Electoral college doesn’t count for the senate.

The College is composed of a number of electors from each state, equal in number to the total number of Representatives and Senators that state sends to Congress.

If the College is unfair, then how can you possibly think Congress' composition itself isn't? Why not try to change Congress so only raw population is reflected in its makeup? Wouldn't that be more "democratic"?

As you must know, there is a large amount of people that wish to do away with the college as in recent history the Republican President was elected with few overall votes.

My question is how do you remove it without it becoming basically a state race because of population centers. I’m not defending it, I’m not demanding it’s removal. I want to know if we remove it, how do we protect the less populated areas of the country?

You can't. The College represents the only type of system that can balance population size with its distribution. I've never seen a better proposal for accomplishing that goal and can't devise one myself. Unless you can, in which case I'd love to hear it, why do you refuse to defend it? It's working perfectly.

Try reading all my comments and even the title before jumping n that high horse.

Dude, I have. I genuinely cannot think of a better way to protect rural interests in a way that still naturally evolves with the ebb and flow of population.

You could run the Census every five years, I suppose. That'd double the rate at which we rebalance Congress and the Electors.

I am actually with you on this. Hence the question to those that want to remove it. If we replace it, it needs to be an even fairer means of electing our President and I have yet to hear of any ideas that meet that criteria.

Agreed. I for one don't want the city-slickers to forever decide who runs the nation, and the College is the only thing that keeps that from happening. Us rural folks matter too, haha.

Convince all the people who live in the city to go live out in bumble-f**k nowhere.

Oh please don't! I lived in large cities before and I love being rural. It's quiet (not counting the Barn Owl) and while it takes time to get anywhere, we like it that way.

Outside Atlanta, the rich began buying up property in the old farm towns and built their McMansions. But they complained about lack of services, no deliver food, no nail salons, no stores. So those services moved out to the same area to provide for them and now those quiet towns have traffic jams and bright lights and worse.

Gentrification.

Welcome to gentrification.

Yeah, because massive development is real good for keeping rural areas rural...

That's the near part. You don't.