> I feel like people's behavior would change if the metric to elect the president was solely based on the popular vote.
Agreed. For most of us who wish to change or abolish the electoral college, the fact that people feel (mostly accurately) that their vote doesn't matter, and therefore don't participate in the electoral process, is the primary problem we would like to address.
I think it's somewhat ironic that usually the people complaining about their vote not mattering come from states like CA or NY that are guaranteed to go to one party, and they complain that the only votes that matter are in swing states.
To me, it seems that the people that should be pissed are the ones in swing states, since the winner-take-all nature of the EC means half of those states are completely un-represented.
Agreed, it doesn't matter whether you're in the majority or the minority, everything above the 50% line is ignored. In fact, if there's a third party in play, more than half of the votes are ignored.
Agreed. For most of us who wish to change or abolish the electoral college, the fact that people feel (mostly accurately) that their vote doesn't matter, and therefore don't participate in the electoral process, is the primary problem we would like to address.