Wouldn't it be better to have each state elect a candidate through local elections - then send that candidate on to run in a large, country-wide election. The person who won the most votes would be President, and the person with the second number of votes would be Vice President. The elections would be paid for by the tax payers, and no other funds could be used - that way everyone has the same air time, promotional money, etc. We might even have a Republican as one and a Democrat as the other. Any thoughts?
206144
I think this is an interesting idea and creative. It just might work.
553012
It's conceivably possible.  Suppose there's a close race and the winning ticket gets, say, 270 electoral votes and the loser get 268.  In such a case, it would only take 2 faithless electors to vote for the losing party's VP nominee over their own in order to get a VP from the other party.  While some states have laws requiring electors to vote for who they're pledged to, not all do so it could happen.\n\nLikewise, in the above example, if those 2 electors were to vote for someone else, so that neither of the 2 VP candidates received a majority of the votes, then the Senate would get to decide which of them (or that random guy that the faithless electors voted for) would get to be Vice-President.  This scenario is probably more likely: imagine that the winning party's VP nominee had some scandal come out about him: some electors might still be required to vote for him, because of the faithless elector laws I noted above, while others would choose not to, and thus failing to give any candidate the majority.
286283
On the one hand, I applaud the concept of making every participate in our democracy.  No one should feel marginalized if they had a hand in electing their leader.\n\nOn the other hand, I am like a lot of the Founding Fathers who expressed severe doubts that the average person could make intelligent decisions.  I live in a typically middle class area where you would expect people would have the education and the interest in politics to understand the issues.  However, the amount of fallacious thinking I encounter is downright scary.\n\nI'd have to consider your idea further, but right now my gut tells me this: If someone isn't interested enough to vote of their own volition, how meaningful will making them put an "X" in Box-A, or Box-B ?  A lot of these people would know nothing about the candidates.  I think it would encourage candidates to "dumb down" their campaigns, and pander to certain groups.
350073
Yes, anything would be better than what we have now.. If you mean that lobbyists couldn't offer money directly to the candidates legally, that wouldn't solve the problem completely, but it would definitely help.
529848
First, there would need to be a Constitutional Amendment passes to change the way the President and Vice President is selected. This usually takes a couple years to do. It could be done faster, but it would need to be approved by 3/4 of the states, and a lot of them are smaller and benefit from the electoral system more than they would from a popular vote. So you need to convince them that it is needed.\n\nAfter that, Congress would then need to work out all the various details on doing a national popular election. As it is now, that is left to the States. There are very few laws on the federal level dealing with elections. And after this, I'm sure there would be several states fighting these laws in court for a few years, claiming the new laws were unconstitutional because they infringe on the State's rights.\n\nWe have less than two years before the next election. I don't think that is enough time to get all this done. A better idea (and quicker) is to convince your state legislators to change the way they distribute their votes. Most states (48 of them) give all electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote in the state. Get your state to change it to distribute it more proportional to the popular vote (unless you already live in one of the two states that do something like this).
622844
i agree that it would be better i.e. more convenient for the voters.  i'm not sure that it would be cheaper tho.  yes, a lot of the people manning the ballot boxes are volunteers, but they are taking time off of work etc.
509335
Our votes are "Counted" in each state and "members" of the "electoral collage" relay the number of votes from the state they represent (or do they ?) until they are added together , and the winner is chosen - Like in the last election down in Florida - (wink-wink ) The winner has already been bought....I mean voted for ....silly me !!!!
237881
I've thought about this for awhile and I don't like the idea of a proportional EC due to fact if we do that we might as well go to direct voting, which would only cause the candidates to go to the big cities and ignore the smaller sections of the country.  The electoral college was intended to give the states a say in the election and also make sure a candidate was elected with a national message instead of just a regional one.  \n\nIf we were going to change it the only plan I've seen that I would support would be that the winner of the state would recieve 2 votes (EC formula remember is # of Senators-2 + # of Representatives) and then the winner of each House district would recieve that vote.  That plan would reward a Candidate for campaigning in a state but would also keep the states in play and make candidates campaign everywhere.  Actually that plan might make it possible for more states to be in play instead of Candidates writing off a state to the other guy.  I think this would keep the safeguards that the founders intended the EC to be when they wrote the Constitution.\n\nTo JustCommonSense^^^ \nA. WE ARE A REPUBLIC NOT A DEMOCRACY!\nB. Why the Green party and not the Libertarian party?\nC. A good portion of the population doesn't vote in         the Presidental race now what makes you think that they would vote for Cabinet Members at least now most Cabinet Members have some experience in the office they hold.  If we did your plan then someone without any experience or expertise could get into office just because he's a better campaigner or has more money.\n\nTo JustCommonSense^^^ \n\nSorry for yelling, the Republic/Democracy thing is a pet peeve of mine.  \n\nGreen/Libertarian really doesn't matter but we definitly need more choices than we have now.\n\nAs for the rest of my response, I'm going to put it on my 360, that will be a more appropriate place if were going to have a running debate. I've allowed comments on my blog so feel free to respond there.
510487
Since vote rigging would be next to impossible in the state were I live then no one here who be able to "win" this money.\n\nWe have checks and balances to keep it from happening.
426160
Two reasons:\n\n1) The electoral vote is only used for President and Vice President. The U.S. Congress and your state and local offices are elected by the popular vote.\n\n2) The electoral votes from your state is determined by the popular vote in your state.
8766
This is my favorite type of question, so I'll answer with another question.  Why do we send billions overseas to help other countries when we have so many problems at home?  The real answer to this and many other questions like it is that we as a society let "our" elected officals make choices for us, that's why we are a Republic.  I wish we could have some kind of utopian country where we're a true democracy and the people voted on a budget that is proposed to them by their elected officals.  However it could never happen, we can even agree on Coke or Pepsi.
345862
So powerful people can steal elections. This is a huge deal. All americans need to fight for clean and fair elections. We could lose everything because of this problem alone.
463532
depends on the state or local laws.  for presidential elections, it still epends on the state laws.  sometimes people are on the ballot in one state but not the other.
258422
Well, right off the bat, the US elects everybody by popular vote, right down to the local dogcatcher.\n\nThe confusion many people have is owing to our origins, where each individual colony of Great Britain was used to being separate from the others, and so when we formed the United States, each State had to have its concerns for Sovereignty [running its own local affairs] addressed.  So a system was devised to give the small states equal representation in the congress with the large ones, while also giving the people representation based on how many there are in each state [one representative per so many thousand].  So we have 2 senators from each state in the Senate.  And we have about 456 representatives in the House of Representatives.\n\nSenators and Representatives run for election based on membership in a party.  The people who want to run for office [British "stand" for office] for the Republican party have their names placed on the ballot by petition signed by a sufficient number of people.  Then there is an election to decide which of these Republicans will be the Republican candidate for the office in contest.  The same with the other parties.  This is called a primary election.  When that election decides who shall be the candidate from each party, then the people vote on the various condidates for the office in contest.\n\nWe do in fact have more than the 2 parties.  But the system is so old and our population is so much alike and our domestic issues are so continously the same that most people really are either Republicans or Democrats.\n\nAs far as the Presidential election goes, the Constitution does not provide for the direct election of the president.  It provides for the States [that old States' Right thing] to send Electors equal to the number of Representatives it has in Congress to vote on the candidates put forward, without mentioning how they are to be put forward.\n\nThe theory was that people would vote for Electors whose political views were known, and these Electors would gather together in a College and hash out who would be President among themselves, with the most populous states having the most votes because they have the most representatives in Congress.  \n\nBut rapidly, it fell out that parties would nominate a candidate and the people voted for the Electors who commmitted themselves to him, and then the Electors voted in the College for that person, even though they don't really have to.  \n\nWhat this results in is that candidates spend a lot of time in the most populous states because those states have the most Electors, and there is the rule that the candidate who gets the most votes, even if only 51%, gets ALL the Electors  from his state.\n\nThere is a lot of discussion about ditching this imperfect system in favor of absolute popular election.  Most people would go for it, but politicians like it because they can spout and posture in only a few states and win the election, even though they don't get the majority of the popular votes.
583940
heh heh heh... clever.\n\nBlue states? So called in tribute to the political blue-balls experienced in every election? (so close, yet so far away...)
478300
to elect the president -true, the vice president comes with the package. Each state has so many electoral votes.
417714
I agree 100% with you, but lets take it one step further. In libraries and community building machines like automatic teller machines could be placed and from time ballot was printed till 8 o'clock election day you could enter your voting card get paper ballot an envelope vote at your leisure put it into envelope, and with magmatic voting card deposited it to be collected and counted election night. This would end 3 hour time problem. Biggest problem would setting up system to prevent counterfeit collection boxes from being put into system, but with GPA tracking it could be overcome. Primaries could also be done this way if you were allowed to pick you party day you voted.