Yeah because then the entire country will only have to care about what NY thinks
Consider it another way - to win the electoral college, you only need to win the 10 most populous states with a plurality. To win the popular vote, you still need to win basically the exact same set of 10 states but now you would need to win every vote in them (which is functionally impossible).
We also have to agree that even with the EC candidates don't care about the majority of the country. Any voter in a state that goes consistently opposite to them is made completely irrelevant, with no point to trying to reach out to them. If the EC was gone suddenly all those voters actually get a voice.
Keep in mind we're talking about the EC, which makes the problem you're describing _worse_. Like I mentioned, the EC is still largely dependent upon state population, so it doesn't actually force you to win more states or even a substantially different set of states compared to the most populous ones. But since almost all states give out EC votes based on plurality vote, it means winning those population centers you talking about _does_ actually override the votes of the entire rest of the state. In NY, ~37% of the state voted for the Republican in 2020, but 100% of the EC votes went to the Democrat.
You're complaining that NY would get an outsized say if the EC was gone, but are ignored the fact that due to the EC cities like NYC are _already_ getting an outsized say in the presidential election. They benefit from getting to effectively control all the EC votes given to their state, even though a substantial portion of that population doesn't even agree with how they are proportioned. Same thing with California and various other states.
If your concern is instead just that small states won't get represented during the presidential election, then I hate to tell you that they're already completely ignored. I think switching to a direct vote could actually help them get more say, as the proportion of the vote you get from those states could be relevant.
> You want representatives to represent the populace, look no further than the House of Representatives. The Senate is disproportionately represented on purpose. It was designed this way, on purpose.
Sure, but the comment above was specifically about the EC, as was mine. The EC is a completely different beast from the Senate, and arguably was not designed to work this way anyway.
The country clearly leans slightly center left as a whole, but we are trending hard right right now and that is a recipe for disaster and the electoral college is in large part to blame.
We’ve been trending left for fifty years. Maybe it’s time to go the other way for awhile. And hand some power back to the states, where it belongs.
Depends on the topic. Gun rights, for example, have gone decidedly to the right. Few people now remember that Ronald Reagan signed some significant gun control legislation without losing support of his voters.
In the '60s, high school students carried rifles on the NYC subway while going to target practice. Try doing that today.
So, I'd say there has been a lot of pressure to move the window on gun regulation to more restrictive over the last fifty years. I don't think it's done any good at all relative to reducing crime committed with guns. Law abiding gun owners have always had low incidence of gun infractions compared to, say, the police.
The real problem is not enforcing the gun laws we have had for years. Chicago is a prime example: very restrictive laws, but very few convictions for gun offenses, which are frequent. Why is that?
As of today, there is almost half a billion of guns in civilian possession in the US, and the # of open carry and concealed carry jurisdictions has grown massively.
I would say that the lowest point for gun rights US-wide was around the Columbine school shootings, and that the trend changed quite decisively since them. Legislation like that has no chance of passing today.
Even before the recent ruling, there were 8 states that were may-issue; the rest were shall-issue or no permit required.
Justice Thomas has discussed this in his SCOTUS opinions. It’s quite revealing and well worth reading.
SCOTUS rulings are a lot more readable than you might think. They are often quite colorful. You quickly learn to skip by the boilerplate to find the dissenting opinions, which are near the end.
But, yes, states are just as artificial as US as a whole. Municipalities feel like they're the lowest level organization that is actually somewhat organic and interconnected.
And yes, the Civil Rights Act, the 14th Amendment, formally Roe vs Wade, Brown v. BoE, etc.
I will go a step further and say that ONLY the Federal government can secure your individual rights. If your rights can be erased by crossing a state line, then you don't have an individual right.
As for the federal government securing my individual rights in general - considering the existing federal drug laws, and the very real possibility of a federal abortion ban coming in a few years, I'd say you're cherry-picking here.