[exabrial]

I feel like if we eliminated the Electoral College, presidential candidates would only visit areas like La New York City Boston Chicago Atlanta to teach the maximum number of voters.

Instead of removing it, are there ways we can improve it?

[hga]

Bingo, and this has been thoroughly analyzed.

The election would reduce to 8-10 urban areas, which also makes cheating a lot easier.

While we're at it, why don't we remove the other part of the great compromise that gave each state 2 Senators (#electors = #of House of Representative Members + 2)

And that's one reason it'll never happen, you won't get enough state legislatures to vote their states out of relevance.

[yongjik]

On the other hand, under the present system the governor of, say, Florida can tilt the election by reducing/increasing the number of voting places in strategic locations. It may only affect 1% of the voters, but it can be enough.

The same action will move popular vote by only 0.06%, which means there's a much smaller chance of it changing the outcome of the election. As a result it would also discourage state/local governments from trying something funny (not enough incentives).

[hga]

On the other hand, under the present system the governor of, say, Florida can tilt the election by reducing/increasing the number of voting places in strategic locations.

Really??? That's not handled at the county level? It sure is in Missouri (http://www.moga.mo.gov/mostatutes/chaptersIndex/ChaptIndex11...), and I've never heard of it being done at the state level before---that would seem to be prima facie evidence of a discriminatory voting system---but maybe my education in this is lacking.

Hmmm, seems to be the same for Florida: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...

[chdsbd]

I'm curious. Why do you say this would make cheating easier?

[exabrial]

For a cheater, these are lucrative areas: Areas with low income and education rates, where the populace doesn't typically vote. Stuffing the box won't go noticed due to low election turnout.

In Kansas, we have a system to prevent ballot stuffing. You must show state or federal issued ID. Your name must be in the pollbook for the location and pre-registered before election day.

They have two areas: The first, you show your ID and they check your entry in the location's pollbook. The fact that you showed up to vote along with the ID you presented is recorded electronically statewide and is public information instantly.

They then print an anonymous "voting ticket" and you're taking to a separate area or room. A smart card is exchanged for your voting ticket is put into an air-gapped system and you cast your ballot. Your smart card is removed and tallied on a third air-gapped system. When the poll closes, the tally machine is handed over to the county.

This system makes it nearly impossible to stuff the box, because the number of votes cast at a location cannot exceed the number of IDs presented at the checkin location. It doesn't protect from changing votes, which would require a much more sophisticated attack on the machines themselves.

It's not perfect, but it is fairly good at stopping unsophisticated opportunistic attackers. I would feel much better if all of the USA adopted such a protocol if we go to a popular vote, but that's unlikely to happen, so I can't say I'm comfortable moving away from the electoral college either.

[maxerickson]

Wait, what states don't use election rolls (id checks do vary by state)?

I'm a lot happier with paper ballots + electronic tabulation than I am with electronic ballots, what do you think those parts of the process you describe are adding?

[hga]

Right now it's nearly impossible to clean election rolls of dead etc. voters, e.g. the Feds fight this hard.

However, state and Federal issued IDs have a subsidiary feature, perhaps even more important that on the spot election verification now that I think about it, in that they expire, and I'm sure some of them also have revocation measures after the ID holder dies. This is much more true for people moving.

Agreed on the paper ballot + electronic counting, and very glad my county in neighboring Missouri uses that system, I never trusted the totally electronic or electromechanical systems I used in Arlington, VA or Brookline, MA

[hga]

Many many fewer precincts and political domains.

The US has a total of 3,143 counties or equivalents per Wikipedia, obviously divided between 50 states and D.C., each a separate political domain, both counties and states. Corrupting enough of those under the Electoral College's constraints is a lot harder.

[jlangemeier]

Because you're going directly off of the vote, instead of a representation of that vote via the elector for that area. It's a subtle difference, but one that brings to light some of the fears with direct election.

[ubernostrum]

The counterargument is to look at current patterns of candidate visits. They already concentrate a huge amount of time, effort and money on a non-representative sample of the US, because the electoral college system prioritizes that non-representative sample.

Replacing one arbitrary non-representative sample with an arbitrary more-representative sample is not necessarily bad.

[tbrock]

Instead, today they mostly visit swing states. Is that any better?

[hga]

For one, it discourages polarization. Yeah, I'm sure many in California are happy it's a near 100% Blue State due to the coastal cities aside from San Diego, but that has consequences in being taken for granted or worse.

And anyway, speaking as someone who lives in a true 100% Red State part of Missouri (Jasper County in the extreme SW), that just changes which election matters, the primaries are were the action is. E.g. this year every county position I could vote for, plus my state house rep, was unopposed a couple of days ago. But that was most certainly not true in our August state primary!

[desdiv]

CGP Grey's video addresses this point: https://youtu.be/7wC42HgLA4k?t=197

[exabrial]

I think CGP Grey ignores the elephant in the room and doesn't account for the metro areas of such cities... And there's the fact the eastern seaboard is one giant city from NYC to DC basically with no breaks between townships.

[exabrial]

Boom, he just conceded to my point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3wLQz-LgrM&ab_channel=CGPGr... :)

Which brings me back to my original point: How can we improve it?