The Denver Post is just wrong in wanting to change how the election of the President is conducted. Instead of using the electoral college, they want to use the national vote.
This is just wrong. It seems to me that they have forgotten the civics and American government classes.
The electoral college was set up to lessen the influence of big states and cities. And lessen the influence of political parties. It has raised the importance of rural communities and smaller states.
As close as the elections have become, the importance of the smaller states has become important. For example, Colorado has become a battleground state and it has brought all of the presidential candidates to campaign here and not only in the Denver metro area.
Finally, they are totally inaccurate when they say millions of votes aren’t counted. They are all counted and important. The elections are too close and too important for people not to vote.
www.denverpost.com/2019/02/01/colorado-electoral-college-popular-vote/
Mile High Soapbox 
Now, because of statewide winner-take-all laws, in some states, big city Democratic votes can outnumber all other people not voting Democratic in the state. All of a state’s votes may go to Democrats.
Without state winner-take-all laws, every conservative in a state that now predictably votes Democratic would count. Right now they count for 0
The current system completely ignores conservatives presidential voters in states that vote predictably Democratic.
Colorado is now a Blue state.
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In presidential elections, current state winner-take-all laws create the illusion that entire states voted 100% for the state’s winner, because the laws award 100% of each state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most votes in the state. However, for example, in Connecticut, the actual vote was 898,000 votes for Clinton; 673,000 for Trump, 49,000 for Johnson, and 23,000 for Stein.
The price that a state pays for its winner-take-all law is that no presidential candidate has anything to gain or lose by soliciting voters or catering to voter issues in 38 states in the November general election. The Democratic candidates take blue states for granted, The Republican candidates take red states for granted. Every voter in safe states—Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green—ends up without any meaningful influence or voice in the presidential election.
If you add up all the runner-up votes and all the surplus votes cast for president, then about 60% of all votes cast for president under the current system do not matter at all.
Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter equally in the state counts and national count.
The vote of every voter in the country (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green) would help his or her preferred candidate win the Presidency. Every vote in the country would become as important as a vote in a battleground state such as New Hampshire, Ohio, or Florida. The National Popular Vote plan would give voice to every voter in the country, as opposed to treating voters for candidates who did not win a plurality in the state as if they did not exist.
The National Popular Vote bill would give a voice to the minority party voters for president in each state. Now they don’t matter to their candidate.
In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).
And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state, are wasted and don’t matter to presidential candidates.
Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 “wasted” votes for Bush in 2004.
Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 “wasted” votes for Bush in 2004 — larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes).
8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
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Completely disagree that a populist vote favors one party over another. Going to a strictly populist vote would ignore rural America and the smaller states. Everyone needs to have a vote and the electoral college mages that happen.
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Now, because of statewide winner-take-all laws, in some states, big city Democratic votes can outnumber all other people not voting Democratic in the state. All of a state’s votes may go to Democrats.
Without state winner-take-all laws, every conservative in a state that now predictably votes Democratic would count. Right now they count for 0
The current system completely ignores conservatives presidential voters in states that vote predictably Democratic.
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But that is different than popular vote for electoral college. That is something that should be addressed in the state.
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None of the 10 most rural states (VT, ME, WV, MS, SD, AR, MT, ND, AL, and KY) is a battleground state.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes ( not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution) does not enhance the influence of rural states, because the most rural states are not battleground states, and they are ignored. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.
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With the National Popular Vote bill, when every popular vote counts and matters to the candidates equally, successful candidates will find a middle ground of policies appealing to the wide mainstream of America. Instead of playing mostly to local concerns in Ohio and Florida, candidates finally would have to form broader platforms for broad national support. Elections wouldn’t be about winning a handful of battleground states.
Fourteen of the 15 smallest states by population are ignored, like medium and big states where the statewide winner is predictable, because they’re not swing states. Small states are safe states. Only New Hampshire gets significant attention.
Support for a national popular vote has been strong in every smallest state surveyed in polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group
Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in 9 state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions.
Now political clout comes from being among the handful of battleground states. 70-80% of states and voters are ignored by presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns.
State winner-take-all laws negate any simplistic mathematical equations about the relative power of states based on their number of residents per electoral vote. Small state math means absolutely nothing to presidential campaign polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, or to presidents once in office.
In the 25 smallest states in 2008, the Democratic and Republican popular vote was almost tied (9.9 million versus 9.8 million), as was the electoral vote (57 versus 58).
In 2012, 24 of the nation’s 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined.
The 12 smallest states are totally ignored in presidential elections. These states are not ignored because they are small, but because they are not closely divided “battleground” states.
Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are non-competitive in presidential elections. 6 regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT, ME, and DC) in presidential elections.
Similarly, the 25 smallest states have been almost equally noncompetitive. They voted Republican or Democratic 12-13 in 2008 and 2012.
Voters in states, of all sizes, that are reliably red or blue don’t matter. Candidates ignore those states and the issues they care about most.
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Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, for every candidate, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter equally in the state counts and national count.
The vote of every voter in the country (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green) would help his or her preferred candidate win the Presidency. Every vote in the country would become as important as a vote in a battleground state such as New Hampshire, Ohio, or Florida. The National Popular Vote plan would give voice to every voter in the country, as opposed to treating voters for candidates who did not win a plurality in the state as if they did not exist.
Voters in the biggest cities in the US have been almost exactly balanced out by rural areas in terms of population and partisan composition.
16% of the U.S. population lives outside the nation’s Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Rural America has voted 60% Republican. None of the 10 most rural states matter now.
16% of the U.S. population lives in the top 100 cities. They voted 63% Democratic in 2004.
The population of the top 50 cities (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 15% of the population of the United States.
The rest of the U.S., in suburbs, divide almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats.
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