You didn't watch the presidential debate last night

In other news, Pence, Bannon and Priebus will be in the White House together.

God Bless (Help) America.

 

By definition a PV candidate (with Ranked Choice Voting or something, none of this FPTP BS) must win enough votes to have the majority. This is also depth and breadth of support.

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You argue that PV could mean a few states have too much influence yet you don't have a problem with the EC rewarding a person who wins 12 States or so and loses over 30 of them? It's basically the same thing.

At the same time, if 3 states had enough population to control the election, then under that same scenario the person likely won the EC anyway largely by those 3 states.

It just seems contradictory for you to claim using PV has X or Y problems when similar problems exist within the EC structure that you either ignore or dismiss as an issue.

(Oh, as for your new scenario... are we moving the goal posts again?)

 

So let's see what happens in your modified scenario...:

Using the 2010 Census as the baseline, the 3 largest states are:

California, Texas, and New York​

So let's say, somehow, these states landslide at 60% to Candidate A with a turnout of 55%. (Extremely unlikely someone can manage to win all 3 of these at 60%, but let's go with it for now.)

Candidate A has 26.9 million votes (122 EC) to Candidate B's 18 million votes (0 EC).

The next 5 largest states are won by Candidate A at 52%.

Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan​

Candidate A adds 18.8 million votes (103 EC) to Candidate B's 17.3 million votes (0 EC). (Many swing states here, plausible that someone who won the biggest 3 states by a large margin could win most of these.)

The remaining states go to Candidate B at 52%.

Candidate A adds 44.3 million votes (0 EC) to Candidate B's 53.2 million votes (302 EC). (Extremely unlikely that someone who won the big 3, along with a number of big swing states, then can't convert ANY remaining state. )

In total, Candidate A here earns 89.4 million votes 225 EC and Candidate B earns 88.6 million votes and 312 EC.

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So in this the almost impossible fantasy scenario, Candidate A wins 50.3% of the popular vote and loses the EC. Which is exactly the kind of scenarios we are talking about that ALREADY occurred this year and in the year 2000.

Note too that this is being very generous to this scenario, even a slightly more realistic scenario where Texas goes to Candidate B and Georgia goes A instead completely nullifies this and we get something different.

In total, Candidate A here earns 88.5 million votes 203 EC and Candidate B earns 90.2 million votes and 335 EC.

So under the slightly more realistic scenario where Candidate A wins the largest 8 states that are not Texas (because whoever wins California loses Texas and vice versa, typically), he loses the PV and the EC.

Note Also: The last time someone won New York, Texas and California all at once was Reagan and he won basically won almost every state and STILL only managed a popular vote % of 50.7% in 1980 and 58.8% in 1984! Which really speaks to how unlikely the hypothetical situation really is.

The important thing to notice is that even in this dramatically unlikely hypothetical scenario you have created - we actually don't end up with anything different than what already happens under the EC with NORMAL circumstances. So it seems extremely suspect to argue that PV would automatically mean that the bigger states would suddenly rule every election when the margins are still so thin even in this hypothetical.

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But what if those big 3 states were significantly larger - isn't that the real concern? Well, let's look at that. Let's pretend they have double the population, and an according increase in EC votes.

California goes to 74.4 million people and 110 EC.

Texas goes to 50.3 million people and 76 EC.

New York goes to 38.8 million people and 58 EC.

In this scenario, we have a total of 657 EC votes, so each candidate needs 329 to win the EC.

In total, Candidate A here earns 104.1 million votes at 347 EC (49 million votes and 244 EC from the top 3 states alone) and Candidate B earns 88.7 million votes and 310 EC.

So, in this case, where it's much more clear that the top 3 states have the population to control the election, the PV and EC actually returns the same result - Candidate A wins, with more EC and a popular vote of 54% (which is fairly large margin, the majority of Presidents come into office having 53% or less, and about 1/3rd doesn't get to 50%).

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So is this really worth disenfranchising millions of voters for? Especially since the EC can also allow someone to win by winning just 12 states?

 

Entitlement actually has a specific definition as it is used in government, but also a different definition when used in other contexts. So you have got this conflict with what people are saying and what they mean sometimes.

 

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/campaign-events-2016



"Two-thirds (273 of 399) of the general-election campaign events in the 2016 presidential race were in just 6 states(Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, and Michigan).

94% of the 2016 events (375 of the 399) were in 12 states (the 11 states identified earlier in the year as "battleground" states by Politico and The Hill and Arizona.This fact validates the statement by former presidential candidate and Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin on September 2, 2015, that "“The nation as a whole is not going to elect the next president. Twelve states are.” "

94% in just 12 states. That breadth and depth tho!

 

That's almost the same as National PV, except that smaller states still get a little bit extra (they get a minimum of 3 if their population). It's a decent compromise, theoretically.

 

Probably not much. The margins are actually usually fairly equal. The US is fairly evenly divided politically (and I think the nature of politics forces it in that direction), despite what some might fear. Most Presidents come into office with under 53% of the popular vote, so whether it's calculated by state or national vote it'd make little difference.



Of course, as always, we caveat that voting turnout patterns MIGHT change if the system was different, so it's possible things change more dramatically, but it's hard to argue that it'd really swing wildly in any specific direction.