[Huskymaniac]

Originally Posted by LetItSnow

This is where things become complicated in NY - New York City south of Westchester is a different world in too many ways to fairly be attached to everything north of that area. In the 2008 election, the difference between red and blue votes cast upstate was 20,000 - a surmountable number. This was tremendously squelched, however, by the large number of voters in the New York City area, 2/3 of whom voted Democrat, leaving upstate along for the ride.

The last polls I read showed New York as a whole leaning 61-63% toward Democrat votes. In order to make New York a swing state, the entirety of upstate would have to vote Republican.

The Electoral College carries no concern for the interests of upstate New York, save that its residents can stay home on Election Day, as their ballots are inconsequential.

Some states do split up their electoral votes and I wish NY did also. We get screwed in upstate. Have you seen how democrats, and especiall Obama, did in the Bronx?!?!?! I think Obama got 98% of the vote there!!! The 2% were probably the lingering Italian population in little Italy.

If you assign 2 electoral votes to the winner of the state and one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, Bush would have crushed Gore in 2004. What serves the interests of people in the middle of upstate NY is not even close to what serves the interests of people living in Harlem. But, whereas people in upstate differ in their opinion on how to solve the problems, people in Harlem ALL think the democrat is ALWAYS the answer. When one district goes 98% democrat, you need a lot of other districts to go 60/40 to make up the difference. Stated another way, the popular vote has far from a normal distribution when you bin districts. It is wildly skewed in favor of democrats who are more likely to be unreasonable, irrational extremists.

So, there you have another reason to have some sort of electoral college system. Right or wrong, a skewed demographic deciding the outcome of the presidential election is not what this country is all about.