For those calling for the abolishment of the electoral college, here is one simple question.

[athena]

24. You confusing the way one wins the EC with the way one would win the popular vote.

California may be a very populated state, but that is the point: it is populated. To try to get a bigger margin in California, you would need to campaign that much more in California. In other words, for more votes in California, you would have to campaign more in California. But those votes wouldn't have to come from California. You could get those votes anywhere; they could come from Texas or from New Jersey or from Oregon. As a result, candidates would be campaigning everywhere.

Compare that to the current system: if you get 50.1% of Californians' votes, you get all of California. Same for Texas. Same for Michigan. No candidate has any incentive to get more than 50.1% of the vote in any state. So, naturally, since the popular vote doesn't matter, they don't campaign in states where 50.1% will definitely be surpassed, nor in states where 50.1% is unreachable; they campaign in those states where 50.1% is reachable but not guaranteed. The only votes that matter are the ones in those swing states.

This is all kind of obvious, but I think you need to think about it more to convince yourself that selecting the president based on the popular vote would mean that everyone's vote would be equally valuable regardless of where they lived. No one's vote could be taken for granted.