Quote:
Originally Posted by Janszoon
What do you feel would be the flaws of simply having a popular vote? The way I see it, it would give everyone an equal voice and also make third party candidates more viable. Both of those seem like positives to me.
|
Third parties won't win the presidency until we have multi-member district legislators. So right now with the electoral college there's a rural bias in policy. I'm not sure if that's a bad thing. These places are poorer and are a lot less self sufficient than large urban with larger tax bases. A popular vote would just shift the bias towards urban areas. I don't really think big picture that one is better than the other but ag subsidies definitely keep food prices low. It would equalize voting power but it's not really as big of an issue as people make it out to be. Obama got approximately 60 million votes and Romney got approximately 57 million votes (rounding down for easy math). So Romney got 5% less popular vote and 33% less electoral votes. Most of the states listed as a problem voted for Romney.
I really think that changing the system ends with a different approach but unlikely a different outcome.