163- ELECTING OUR PRESIDENT By NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE?.....

a- For some time, this U.S government and Sociology educator, along with a growing chorus of reformists, are urging that the rules for selecting our U.S. President be changed from an archiac Electoral College method to a simple and FAIRER national popular vote!
It's simple...under the current Electoral College, our invidual votes in the Presidential election often DO NOT count! The current state-by-state method of choosing presidential electors actually sets up a divided country. "Battleground" states during this past election, 2008, received the most, by far, attention and power.

b- The Electoral College has a fixed number of 538 Electors. That's a total of 435+3 for the House of Reps and 100 for the U.S. Senate, both fixed. 538 total Electors in the Electoral College. The +3 was added for D.C. when the U.S. Constitution decided that D.C. had no representation. 270 are needed to "win" the Presidential election. If there is a tie, and History says there has been, it is decided in the House of Reps in a prescribed manner.

c- Since each State in the U.S. Senate is on an equal basis, with two (2) Senators each, the difference comes in the House of Reps. Remember, there are only 438 Electors total. Therefore, each State's Electors in the House is based on population. Are you beginning to understand problem here? Much of the action, therefore, is often centered with the heavily populated states, like California with a total of 55 Electoral votes (53+2)...Texas with 34 (32+2)...Florida with 27 Electoral votes (25+2)...Illinois 21 (19+2)...Ohio 20 (18+2)...PA. 21 (19+2)...New York 31 (29+2).....

d- The state-by-state method of choosing our president and presidential electors actually divides up our country into states, or blocks of states, into ones that are "hot" for campaigning or nearly ignored! Population (Electoral College) dictates that Alaska, Vermont, D.C., Delaware, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, with 3 Electoral votes for our president willl....go figure, now. Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Hawai'i and Idaho have 4 E. votes. That means 2 U.S. Senators and 2 Reps. Now...what states have the "power" in the election and which don't?

e- AND...does YOUR vote on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of a federal election year (formula!) go directly to YOU? Now YOU see that it doesn't!!!! Why, because every State's vote is decided by the Electors who actually vote in each respective state's capital. And they chose how a state votes by the total popular vote. If Virginia, for example, has the plurality vote (most votes by count) for the Democrats, Virginia Electors give ALL 13 Electoral Votes to the democrtic presidential candidate! The Republican candidate for president gets NONE. Therefore, YOUR individual vote, no matter what, did not go directly to the candidate you voted for!!!! Even worse, if your candidate in Virginia was the republican hominee, your vote never had a chance to be counted!

f- Go back to my lists of the states with the most population and Electoral votes. If YOU were a candidate for president, more of your $$$ and especially time would go to what states?...can you say California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Flordia....? And, looking at a specific year's election, a candidate and campaign may need to concentrate also on a "smaller' state that becomes a "swing' state that could add to winning with the larger populated states...remember in 2000 with Florida?

g- So...I am, like many others, into problem solving, convinced that one must have a better way. We need a better system whereby EVERYONE's vote equally counts!

h- One possible plan involves each State NOT giving all Electoral votes to the "winner take all" for a State...but instead a % for the major candidates. Virginia, therefore, has 13 Electoral votes (2 U.S. Senators and 11 Reps). According to the popular vote in Virginia, a % of the 13 would go to the Democratic candidate and a % to the Republican candidate. The way it is now, if the Republicans got the plurality majority, they would receive the 12 Electoral votes and Democrats 0!...see why that is unfair? The Democrats who voted in the popular vote in Virginia would get NOTHING!...their vote, even though voting, does NOT COUNT!!!