O'Connor questions court's decision to take Bush v. Gore

[oldcelt]

The candidates will concentrate only on campaigning in large urban areas and concentrating on issues only important to them. The founders wisely made sure a candidate had to appeal to people all across the country, both urban and rural.

The founders made those considerations in a time before the reach of mass media. I contend that those concerns are long outdated. Whether you have the electoral college or a popular vote system, a candidate still has to somehow obtain the majority of the vote. My state is a perfect example…In fact, with each vote carrying the exact same weight, there could be considerable motivation to pay attention, at least symbolically, to rural areas.
Campaigns now can reach anybody, anywhere, and personal appearances are becoming less and less relevant. In fact, with security concerns, the days of pressing the flesh are just a pleasant memory.

 

[oldcelt]

A popular vote would give the more populous states more power, and detract from the less populous ones. It’s the same concept as the Senate. All states are equal commonwealths.

More populace states already have more power because they have more representatives in the house. A popular vote for the presidency would have absolutely no impact on that.
The office of the presidency represents the people as a whole…individual states are really not relevant in that equation. What is relevant is the will of the people in their entirety…and a popular vote could reflect that very nicely.

 

[ProVobis]

This is most definitely true. The vast majority of counties in the U.S. have Republican majorities in terms of voting in presidential elections; approximately a 4:1 margin. However, major cities, which have high populations, typically are Democratic strongholds.

It’s going to be disproportionate no matter how you look at it. Look at the states which have a low number of electoral votes. Why do they get more electoral bang for each popular vote than states like California, Texas, and such? Look, for example, at Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, and Alaska which each gets 3 electoral votes for only about 600-700,000 people.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population

 

[meltzerboy]

The founders made those considerations in a time before the reach of mass media. I contend that those concerns are long outdated. Whether you have the electoral college or a popular vote system, a candidate still has to somehow obtain the majority of the vote. My state is a perfect example…In fact, with each vote carrying the exact same weight, there could be considerable motivation to pay attention, at least symbolically, to rural areas.
Campaigns now can reach anybody, anywhere, and personal appearances are becoming less and less relevant. In fact, with security concerns, the days of pressing the flesh are just a pleasant memory.

Besides, even as it stands now, presidential candidates do most of their campaigning only in the swing states which have enough electoral votes to tip the balance in their favor. They ignore both the heavily Democratic and heavily Republican states, regardless of whether they are largely urban or rural, densely or sparsely populated.

 

[meltzerboy]

The candidates will concentrate only on campaigning in large urban areas and concentrating on issues only important to them. The founders wisely made sure a candidate had to appeal to people all across the country, both urban and rural.

But they don’t “appeal to people all across the country,” largely due to the electoral college as it relates to the swing states. See post #44.

 

[matt1985]

Everybody has their regrets in life. I’m sure many judges have regrets about how they decided popular cases when they saw the public reaction.

 

[ProVobis]

Besides, even as it stands now, presidential candidates do most of their campaigning only in the swing states which have enough electoral votes to tip the balance in their favor. They ignore both the heavily Democratic and heavily Republican states, regardless of whether they are largely urban or rural, densely or sparsely populated.

Except for the primaries where they would have more exposure to the highly Democratic or Republican areas. After the conventions generally the candidates focus on states where the vote will be close. Seems like in the last 20 years or so, these “swing” states have remained fairly the same, but it wasn’t always like this.

Historically though, even within states, heavily densed areas tend to vote Democratic and less densed areas Republican. That has been true for a long time. To be fair, the Republican has to travel more to be exposed to the same number of people. But then he gets “extra” electoral votes in the less dense states, such as those I’ve mentioned above in #43. Bush needed every single electoral vote in 2000 to win, even with Florida.