Would candidate elected by popular vote be more representative of the nation than candidate elected by the electoral college?2016 election?

Uncle Pennybags

Not necessarily. Remember, both the Trump and Hillary campaigns fought to win Electoral votes, not the popular vote. They allocated time, resources, people and money to win the votes of certain states and their Electoral votes. The Popular vote results were a side-effect. The most populous state in the nation, California, was completely ignored. No campaigning went on here because both sides just assumed California's 55 Electoral votes would go Democrat. If the campaigns and candidates had been trying to win the popular vote, we would have seen radically different campaigns, and quite likely, a different result on the popular vote.

New World Man

I would have to say no. BUT also feel some changes need to be made to the electoral college system (the end resault should actually give 3rd party candidates a fighting chance against Ds and Rs). For one thing the number of votes each state has needs to be update to better reflect there current population. Haven't looked aat the figures that close, but I think it's faiir to say ssome states would end up with more votes, others less, and probably a few unchanged. Once that is out of the way, forget this all or nothing thing - instead split the votes according to percentage of popular votes in said state. So (NOT actual numbers, just exammplless to demo) if a state had 10, there total mightt look something like: 4 -- Trump 3 -- Clintonn 2 -- Johnson 1 -- Stein

Warren T

YOU WOULD HAVE THE TYRANNY OF HE MAJORITY

Tracy

Yes a popular vote would better represent the population. Any explanation or excuse otherwise makes no sense. If the majority were able to choose their POTUS then the majority is represented. It is that simple. Plenty of excuses...ahem reasons...have been posted as to why we don't do that but it makes zero sense to say that if the majority of voters elect person A but the electoral college elects person B (with fewer citizen votes) that somehow person B is a better representation of the country.

Jingoist Jones

It would more likely represent the peoples interests, since people just vote for what is in their best interests. Is this a good thing or not? Well, that's a whole different discussion to be had.

Dale V

No. You half to remember why our forefathers set this up the way they did. So that four or five states in the union can't elect the president because of it's population in those states.

Clive

It depends on what you think "more representative" means. The whole point of the electoral college is that the states should be represented too, not just the people, which is why it was set up that way.

Jeff D

It depends how you define "more representative". The electoral college forces candidates to have a broader geographic appeal; you can't just ignore all the flyover states.

Jeffrey

No. There would be far less representation since there would be little motivation for candidates to campaign in small population states. Take a look at who would NOT have been represented if the the 2016 election had been determined by the popular vote. http://metrocosm.com/election-2016-map-3d/