The issue is the Constitution. As I understand the US Constitution, states get to determine how they allot their electoral votes. Maine is one state that does not give all of them to the popular vote winner in that state. (Isn’t Colorado another?) The constitution does not require that all electors belong to the candidate who wins the popular vote in that state.
I believe one purpose of electors is to provide a degree of separation from the popular vote so that serious folk get to carefully consider the person being elevated to the presidency. If, for instance, it were to come out after the election, but before the electoral college meeting that the nominee had been a long-time double agent for some foreign power, then the electors could choose not to elevate that person to the office.
Another purpose was to prevent large population states from running roughshod over smaller population states by requiring that each state have a minimum of 3 electors no matter how much smaller their population was.
You are exactly right on both reasons for the electorial college.
If you try to link it to the popular vote, you might as well do away with it all together as you’ve defeated the purpose of the system.
This would be a consitutional battle to define what “each state” can or can’t do. Does it mean they get to do whatever they want with their vote, or does it mean they can only choose “between which person” to vote for?
I would think that the majority of the flyover states would vote to keep things as is, otherwise the candidates will only travel to a few states (NY, CA, etc.) when running for president. All the other smaller states would be spectators to the election.
All true. Another purpose of the Electoral College is to confine vote controversies and fraud to one state; otherwise in a close vote the circus we saw in Florida in 2000 would be seen nationwide, and voter fraud in big cities would affect the entire country’s vote totals. The current California proposal would actually enhance this function in most situations.