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Comment by HeWhoLurksLate | Hacker News Reader

The issue is more that everyone should get attention, and removing the electoral college & going straight to popular vote will honestly erode that- as others have noted, politicians will spend more time in the highest population areas and possibly not the highest need areas.

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They'll spend more time campaigning in the areas with the most people who can be convinced to change their votes. This isn't necessarily going to be the highest population areas, as those areas tend to be solidly liberal.

I don't know why the electoral college would be better at identifying high need areas than willingness to change your vote. Shouldn't people who need help be more likely to change their vote than to live in a purple state?

This isn't necessarily true.

If a 10m pop area has a 70-30 split, it's still better to campaign there than a 5m pop area with a 50-50 split. In absolute numbers it's still 3 million supporters versus 2.5 million supporters.

My point is that you want to go to places where you can convince the most people to vote for you, not necessarily the places with the most people. This means you'll want to go to places with lots of undecided voters, supporters who need to be convinced to vote, and non-supporters who you think can be swayed to your side. You also want to avoid places with lots of people who will be energized by your visit to vote against you.

Under your model where the goal of the campaign is to visit your supporters, you'll favor smaller cities that strongly support you over larger cities that support your opponent. A place with 5 million population that's 70-30 in your favor has 3.5 million supporters.

They already don't spend time equally. Currently they spend time where the expected votes are closest to 50:50. Why is that preferable to going to where there are the most undecided voters, which is what would happen?

To be snide have they ever actually gone to the highest need areas? It has always gone towards whatever bloc will win them the most influence. The Dustbowl wasn't a major election campaign area - neighboring governors had to be told that they couldn't use the national guard to keep out US citizens at gunpoint.

> removing the electoral college & going straight to popular vote will honestly erode that- as others have noted, politicians will spend more time in the highest population areas and possibly not the highest need areas.

So I guess you're totally OK with the current system where they spend all their time in Florida & other swing states because the others don't matter...