Lets get rid of primary elections when electing our president

[RoadRunner79]

When it comes to presidential elections, I favor an overhaul of the system that would do away with this ridiculous winner-take-all approach to a state's electoral votes. If we must maintain a vestige of the electoral college, then require that each state's electoral votes are awarded proportionately to the candidates based on their total of that state's popular vote.

At the least, it might motivate people who are perpetual political minorities in red or blue states to get off their asses and cast a ballot. It would also ensure that candidates would take states for granted at their peril.

^^-- This is exactly why my mother doesn't vote.  Her rationale is that if she votes Democrat then it doesn't matter because Oregon is a reliable blue state so she'd just be piling on.  If she votes Republican it doesn't matter because Oregon is a reliably blue state so her vote wouldn't make a difference anyway.

If we went to a true one person one vote system, abolishing the EC and made the office of President a popular vote election she would vote more because she would feel like her vote could actually mean something.

So just as the EC boosts low population states influence on elections and suppresses high population states influence, it also works to disenfranchise votes of the minority party in each of those states.  Democrats in reliably red states and Republicans in reliably blue states both can feel like their votes ultimately don't matter and the system then starts to favor swing states whose issues take precedence over the high population states and the low population states and whose populations are more likely to over represent white, non-college-educated, working class people (AKA the Trump voter).

So if the argument is that the EC more fairly represents the interests of the low population states then that argument is not born out by facts.  It's the swing states whose issues are catered to in presidential elections.  It's the predominate populations in those swing states that are most likely to dictate that state's issues.

I would agree with this, and think that is a problem with the current (EC) system.  You can have a large state, that carries a number of Electoral College votes (such as where I am in PA), and even a 55% win gives all the votes to one party.  Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) and Philadelphia control the state most often.  At least in Pittsburgh, it's largely union driven most of the time, I'm not sure about Philly.   It's a similar issue to the one on the national level.

I would also agree with your assessment about the swing states.   And that is a problem as well, which could be addressed.  However a simple majority system seems to compound the issue not solve it.