Electoral College reform

I agree, with the absence of an amendment to the Consitution, it is currently a state's "manipulation" of how it distributes its allocation of electoral votes. And if Congress ever passes a law (and the President signs), that law would be unconstitutional and should be overturned by the Supreme Court because the procedure is spelled out in the Constitution. Of the states that decided to pledge all their electoral votes to the winner of the national election - well, that's all well and nice and they have every right to distribute their votes however way they want, but I don't they realize that they ceded their voice to the rest of the country. I wonder what will happen when the citizens of the state vote one way, yet its electors vote for the candidate not prefered by the citizens of that state? Bob Kerry beat George Bush by over 1 Million votes in California. If we had changed our law so that all our electoral votes went to Bush (since he won the popular vote), I wonder how my fellow Californians would have reacted.

Agreed, through ignorance of how the system is supposed to work, many states are surrendering their voice voluntarily.

The whole issue kind of goes to the question of is this the United STATES or the UNITED states? My line of thinking is that those who place Federalism above states would favor the national vote, but those who favor states rights favor the electoral college. I agree with you that not everybody who lives in the big city or everybody who live in rural areas think the same, but tendencies tend to be the same. I live in a big city in a big state, but I believe big city policies will dominate if there is no balance. In California, there are two things to consider. There is a split between urban interests and agricultural interests - then there is the "rivalry" between the northern and southern parts of the state. It just seems more than coincidence that at least the last 6 last governors have been from big cities (4 from LA county). Candidates from the urban centers do dominate and to top that, during my lifetime, Southern California has dominated the population, so it doesn't surprise me that 5 of the last 6 governors have been from the southern part of the state, and 4 of those 5 from LA county. Although it's not the hometown of the candidates, but who those large urban centers identify with. The Constitution itself calls for electors from the states to cast ballots, which makes one of the original ideas behind the idea obsolete - but the other part, by assigning each states with electoral votes, indicates concern that the candidates who support the interest of the large states would dominate the country. One person one vote again brings up the Federal vs States question. It is one person one vote within each state, but beyond that state's election, the state as a whole casts its vote. Interesting issue. I'm glad it only comes up once a century.