Roughly 80% of the states in the U.S. are considered safe, flyover, non-battleground, dead zones when it comes to presidential elections. Utah is one of them. Because of the current Electoral College winner-take-all system, people who vote for a Democratic presidential candidate in this historically “red” state are not represented, period. This is no different from a vote for a Republican presidential candidate in a historically “blue” state. All these votes are ignored.
This translates to very few (if any) presidential campaign events in these states and very little attention given to these states’ issues.
The United States presidential election is the only election in the country that does not select the winner via direct election (one person/one vote). If we were able to elect our presidents using a direct election, all states would be regarded equally and all votes would count equally. This would motivate more people to get out and vote and presidential candidates would be more inclined to be a presence in all states.
Isn’t it time the one candidate who represents the country as a whole is elected by all the people of this country?
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would make every person’s vote count equally throughout the U.S. The compact maintains the Electoral College and state control of presidential elections. Instead of the current winner-take-all process used to award all of each state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in each state, it would award the state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Each vote cast, in each state, in each presidential election would count. I support this.
Sheldon B. Smith, Salt Lake City