what are the arguments against deciding the us election by popular vote?

That's the theory, anyways.

I'm pretty sure (google?) that Texas is more populous than NY and Florida is just slightly less.

The two major drawbacks to the EC (aside from being anti-democratic in general):
- outside of battleground states, you really have no part in the national election. I haven't seen a Presidential ad since June (and couldn't figure out what a Bush PAC was running anti-Kerry ads then), no local campaign stops, etc.

- the EC unfairly weights the value of an individual voter in a small state compared to an individual voter in a populous state. (http://www.electionreform.org/ERMain/priorities/ec/data/votevalue.htm)

Electoral votes in state 1 = 10
State 2, 3, 4 = 5

So, in state 1, it's 10 people/electoral vote, in states 2-4 it's 4 people/electoral vote. So the voters in the small states have more power, right?

But if the election is decided by a popular vote, then candidates would hardly bother visiting states 2-4 since state 1 has a large majority of the country's population.

The first is a general response to the 'well they'd only campaign in certain areas' argument. Politicians already do that, they're forced to by EC polarization.

Your hypothetical isn't so relevant, since we're not a country with four states. Within our fifty campaigning isn't restricted to those four states and those states only. (You're also looking at states as collective entities, which is flawed in an election that doesn't go on a state basis.)
Why wouldn't a candidate 'bother visiting' the less populous states? Every individual vote picked up in those states would count just as much as a vote in California or Tennessee. Instead of hitting every truck stop in Michigan, a campaign hits spots across three states or four states, places that never would have seen a candidate until now.

Even taking your argument - why shouldn't the campaigning focus on heavily populated areas/states? Why artificially inflate the value of a DC or North Dakota vote?

If it focuses on heavily populated areas, then the less populated areas get far less attention. Those less populated areas end up outside of the "battleground", which was the complaint in your first point.

So if you want the less populated areas to get attention as well, then you have to make it more worthwhile for the candidates to go there, hence the "vote weight imbalance". Which was the complaint in your second point.

Those less populated areas end up outside of the "battleground", which was the complaint in your first point.
Not quite, I never said anything about population there - only that 'outside of battleground states, you really have no part in the national election.' Which is true.

Also, as I said, this is a response to the standard criticism you're making. ('It will restrict campaigning to populous areas.') The EC already restricts campaigning to limited areas (those in play, obv). Worst-case scenario under your argument, how is this different?

Removing the EC opens up campaigning to a wider variety and larger audience. Bush doesn't need to win New York state, he can win over rural NY. Kerry doesn't need to win Texas, he can pick up votes in Austin. A candidate can't ignore most of the country because it's locked up one way or the other - every vote counts. (You're still looking at states as monolithic entities - campaigning in 'Pennsylvania' doesn't mean Kerry's suddenly going to become more popular in rural middle PN.)

A Democratic candidate could spend a lot of time campaigning in New York - but you're arguing campaign strategy and ignoring diminishing returns. At a certain point, a candidate is working a hell of a lot harder for that last 2% in New York than for 5% who can be swayed in New Mexico.

You didn't answer my last question - if we accept your population-battleground argument, what's wrong with that? Shouldn't a democratic election focus on how much of the electorate supports a candidate? Why artificially inflate the value of a DC or North Dakota vote? Why should my vote count for less because I'm from Texas?

It's "campaigning in highly populated areas" vs "campaigning in highly contested areas". If you eliminate the EC then you're essentially choosing the first. If you keep the EC then you're choosing the second. That's the contradiction. Sure, both are "restrictions", but they're completely different kinds of restrictions.

At a certain point, a candidate is working a hell of a lot harder for that last 2% in New York than for 5% who can be swayed in New Mexico.
Of course, diminishing returns will have to be factored into the campaign strategy. But my point still remains -- without the EC, Kerry would be campaigning more in NY than he has been. Campaign strategy would be significantly altered.

You didn't answer my last question - if we accept your population-battleground argument, what's wrong with that?
I thought I did answer that. Are you saying that electoral votes should be proportional to the population, for all states (i.e. if state A has five times the population of state B then state A should have exactly five times the electoral votes as state B)? I don't see how this gets around the "restricting campaigning to highly populated states" argument.

xpost
Removing the electoral college would increase turnout overall. How many people stay home because their state isn't in play?
This is a good point. However, swing states in 2004 weren't always swing states. Twenty years ago, some of them were highly red or highly blue, but the gap has been narrowing with successive elections. If people stayed home because they thought their votes were worthless, then such things could never take place. All the more reason to always vote -- winning by, say a 65-35 margin is completely different than winning by a 52-48 margin

[quote]It's "campaigning in highly populated areas" vs "campaigning in highly contested areas". If you eliminate the EC then you're essentially choosing the first. If you keep the EC then you're choosing the second. That's the contradiction. Sure, both are "restrictions", but they're completely different kinds of restrictions.[/quote]
Yes, they're different 'kinds of restrictions' - one (restricted to ten 'battleground states') is reality, the other (restricted to 'high-population areas' of which there are fare more than battleground states) is a hypothetical possibility.

Which goes to exactly what I asked - what's the difference?

[quote]Of course, diminishing returns will have to be factored into the campaign strategy. But my point still remains -- without the EC, Kerry would be campaigning more in NY than he has been. Campaign strategy would be significantly altered.[/quote]
Yes, that's the idea. Kerry would be campaigning in New York. So would Bush. And they'd be running ads in Texas. And they'd both visit Arkansas or Arizona or...

Your point was that a candidate would camp out in friendly areas to pump up vote numbers. As you agree, that runs into diminishing returns. There's only so far Kerry can push New York. He can make a greater impact in a 'swing' state or in a Bush state, where votes for him (without carrying the state) would matter.

(I think you're under the impression that I've argued that the abolition of the EC would make people campaign in smaller states or help them in some way. Just to clear that up, I haven't.)

[quote]I thought I did answer that. Are you saying that electoral votes should be proportional to the population, for all states (i.e. if state A has five times the population of state B then state A should have exactly five times the electoral votes as state B)? I don't see how this gets around the "restricting campaigning to highly populated states" argument.[/quote]
One person, one vote, period. If State A has 4 million voters and State B has 1 million voters, State A should constitute 80% of the electoral power. Eliminate 'electoral votes' completely - popular vote only.

It doesn't get around the 'restricting campaigning'! It's not intended to, as there is no reason to worry about getting around it. As I've repeatedly noted, a candidate doesn't need to campaign in highly populated states - he needs to campaign everywhere that there may be voters. Austin and El Paso could throw a lot of votes to Kerry. Bumfuck NY could throw a lot of votes to Bush - under the EC they're irrelevant, because the states are locked up.

What does get around your restricted campaigning argument is that your argument is the status quo. The EC already heavily restricts campaigning. Abolishing the EC if we take your hypotheticals as fact opens up the restricted areas to all populated areas and it eliminates vote disparities.

Which, no, you still haven't answered in your defense of the electoral college. Why is it a good thing to make a vote from North Dakota worth more than a vote from Texas?

If people stayed home because they thought their votes were worthless, then such things could never take place. All the more reason to always vote -- winning by, say a 65-35 margin is completely different than winning by a 52-48 margin
Such things take place largely because of population and cultural shifts, while voter turnout hasn't exactly been on the rise for the last twenty years.

There is no difference in 65-35/52-48 under our system, that's my point. Kerry can afford to lose Texas by 30 points, who cares, he has zero chance of winning it outright. Abolish the EC, and Texas could shift five or six points in his favor with ads and campaigning - 5% of Texas is a lot of votes.

This is exactly the point -- Kerry is LESS likely to visit Bumfuck, Wis. The number of places he can visit is finite, so why waste precious time visiting Bumfuck to potentially impress 25 000 voters when he could spend that time in NYC and potentially impress 5 million voters? From my understanding, this is precisely the reason that the electoral college was created, i.e. so that candidates wouldn't "give up" on less-populated regions of the country.

There is no difference in 65-35/52-48 under our system, that's my point.
There's no difference in any single election -- lost EC votes are lost, it doesn't matter if the difference is 20% or 0.2%. So if people choose to stay at home and their candidate loses 65-35, then nothing will ever change and they deserve what they get. But if they do vote and their candidate loses by only 52-48, you can bet that their state will get a lot more attention from the candidates during the next election.

Abolish the EC, and Texas could shift five or six points in his favor with ads and campaigning - 5% of Texas is a lot of votes.
Yes ... off-topic musings: this is why any post-election comparisons based on the popular vote (i.e. Bush-Gore 2000, Kennedy-Nixon 1960) are rather meaningless. Who knows how many votes Kerry could get if he campaigned in Texas? Who knows how many *more* votes Bush would have had if he'd campaigned in Texas in 2000? Etc.

The true problem, IMO, is that plurality voting is a poor method of deciding winners in areas that are strongly contested by more than two candidates. But hell will freeze over before the system of plurality voting gets changed.

No matter what the voting structure is, a candidate will want to go where there are the greatest number of people who are convincible and who matter. The people in Wisconsin only matter because the number of Rs and Ds are about even, not because there is something Bumfuckishly rural about them.

If the EC were gone, Kerry would have been more likely to make a stop in a place like Boise. Obviously both candidates knew that there was no way Kerry was going to take a majority of Idaho -- but he does have some sliver of support there (Kerry is polling around 30% in Idaho now, and I imagine it's higher in Boise), and if it made any sense at all for him strengthen his support there, he might have. And this might actually help bring more people in Boise over to the Ds. But with the EC, it's clear that the Ds in Boise don't really matter a bit to Kerry.

(Sorry, it's late, so that might not have been as clear as I would have liked it to be.)

It's also easy to forget the length of time it took to travel anywhere in the USA 200 years ago - news of an individual county or state's election result could only travel as fast as a fast horse.

(which also explains why the inaugeration isn't for a couple of months after the election - in the UK, the incoming Prime Minister is almost always appointed the next morning.)

but it seems like they only campaign in a few states now anyway

This is exactly the point -- Kerry is LESS likely to visit Bumfuck, Wis. The number of places he can visit is finite, so why waste precious time visiting Bumfuck to potentially impress 25 000 voters when he could spend that time in NYC and potentially impress 5 million voters?
He will campaign in NYC. And he will campaign in Wisconsin. Again, you seem to think I've argued anything to do with protecting 'small states' or 'less-populous' areas. I haven't.

From my understanding, this is precisely the reason that the electoral college was created, i.e. so that candidates wouldn't "give up" on less-populated regions of the country.
That doesn't make sense - the EC doesn't benefit someone campaigning in 'less-populated regions.' Less-populated states, possibly - but still on the populated areas within them.

But, again, this raises two flags:
Why is this a good thing? Why should we artificially inflate the value of a vote in North Dakota vs. Texas?
How does the EC act any different, isolating campaigning to the battleground states? Your objection has been the population angle, but you haven't explained how this is any different from the way the EC already restricts campaigning.

There's no difference in any single election -- lost EC votes are lost, it doesn't matter if the difference is 20% or 0.2%. So if people choose to stay at home and their candidate loses 65-35, then nothing will ever change and they deserve what they get. But if they do vote and their candidate loses by only 52-48, you can bet that their state will get a lot more attention from the candidates during the next election.
That's all hypothetical and idealistic, but not totally relevant. Election-to-election, how you win or lose does not matter. That's why they don't campaign in non-battleground states. Kerry gave up on Texas from the word go, he'll lose 65-35 or 60-40. Without a winner-take-all EC, Kerry can pick up 5% of Texas and make a big difference in national numbers.

This is, the goal: every vote counts. Today, every vote doesn't count.

Predict the total percentage of votes for Ralph Nader in the 2004 U.S. Election