Electoral College Encourages Candidates to Get to Know All Kinds of Americans – IOTW Report

Electoral College Encourages Candidates to Get to Know All Kinds of Americans

The Daily Signal:

The Electoral College is under fire. Again.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., recently proposed killing it on the grounds that the presidential selection mechanism leads candidates to focus on just a handful of “swing states” that are most likely to determine the election.

If presidents were picked via a nationwide popular vote, she implies, candidates would journey more widely, going anywhere there are potential votes to be won.

While it’s true that presidential candidates concentrate on swing states, there is no electoral system that would push them to tour all of the nation’s 3,007 counties, 64 parishes, and 41 independent cities.

All electoral systems, including the Electoral College, enshrined in the Constitution create incentives to home in on a limited set of places that are most likely to determine the outcome.

The question is not whether it is better for presidents and presidential candidates to care about, and travel to, the entire country or just a portion of it. The question is whether it is better for presidential hopefuls to focus on winning over swing states (as they do under the Electoral College) or big cities (as they would if a nationwide popular election was instituted).

Given these two realistic alternatives, the Electoral College system is far healthier for the country as a whole. keep reading

7 Comments on Electoral College Encourages Candidates to Get to Know All Kinds of Americans

  1. It might be fun to watch Liz foam at the mouth by suggesting we need to repeal the 17th Amendment and go back to the better system of having state legislatures choose their U.S. senators.

    And while we’re at it, also scrap the 16th and the income tax.

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  2. “Candidates would travel all over the country, rather than spend their time in the approximately 500 counties that Hillary won while Trump won over 2900 counties.”

    Yeah, right, Liz. At least the swing states change from election to election.

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