[exhaustguy]

I guess I would be in favor of each state deciding to split the votes by Congressional district with the two extra votes going to the winner of the state. Such an approach would create something of a firewall against the nightmare of a national recount (think 2000), but still persuade candidates to campaign more than just in the battleground states. The fact that the smaller states still carry proportionally more weight will help the concept of federalism.

I don't think it is healthy for either party to ignore the out of play states. I think part of the national balkanization is due to this fact.

The problem is that this approach would either have to be formalized in the Constitution or all 50 states would have to adopt the approach (very unlikely unless you get traditionally red and blue states to do it together).

I think that I would prefer a Constitutional amendment that would also get away from the concept of electors (some day a faithless elector is going to make a difference and then watch out). The amendment could also formalize succession issues (such as if the President and/or the Vice President elect getting killed before swearing in).

[kabar]

Why change the Constitution to remove electors? It is part of federalism and the right of states to decide how they will cast their electoral votes? The objective of this group is the direct election of the President and VP by popular vote. They have developed this Rube Goldberg system to circumvent the Constitution, i.e., they keep the electoral college in place but they use state compacts to allocate the electoral votes based on the national popular vote.