A few links from around the ‘net:
- Norfolk’s secrecy doesn’t help schools.I think this is the first time that the editorial board in Norfolk has come out in favor of elected school boards. Good for them!
- Speaking of schools, how about that cheating scandal in Georgia?
- RIP, Jim Kincaid. A true professional, the likes of which we don’t see often anymore. He reported the news, not his opinion of the news.
- Use popular vote to allocate electoral votes? A group is going state-by-state to try to change this. Virginia is on the list.
- Be heard on Ft. Monroe.Strong article by Del. Gordon Heisel (R-91st) urges public participation in the hearings tomorrow, July 19, on the fate of the fort.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
I used to think the popular vote was the way to go, but then I read an article online (can’t find it, wish I could) that was basically a statistical analysis of nationwide population centers that showed a way you could feasibly win the popular vote while visiting only a few states. If it wasn’t for the electoral college, candidates would spend the vast majority of their time in the top 10 MSA’s and not worry about anything else. They have nearly a third of the nation’s population and probably more than that when it comes to active voters. It’s sounds cynical and anti-democratic, but I don’t think someone should be able to win the presidency just by running up huge margins in LA, New York, Chicago, Dallas, and Philadelphia.
The 11 most populous states contain 56% of the population of the United States, but under the current system, a candidate could win the Presidency by winning a mere 51% of the vote in just these 11 biggest states — that is, a mere 26% of the nation’s votes.
Evidence as to how a nationwide presidential campaign would be run can be found by examining the way presidential candidates currently campaign inside battleground states. Inside Ohio or Florida, the big cities do not receive all the attention. And, the cities of Ohio and Florida certainly do not control the outcome in those states. Because every vote is equal inside Ohio or Florida, presidential candidates avidly seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns. The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate in Ohio and Florida already knows–namely that when every vote is equal, the campaign must be run in every part of the state.
Even in blue states with the biggest cities, urban voters don’t control statewide elections, so they can hardly control a national election. In California state-wide elections, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don’t campaign just in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and there have recently been Republican governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger. Just as with a national vote, a vote in rural Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles.
The main media at the moment, namely TV, costs much more per impression in big cities than in smaller towns and rural area. So, if you just looked at TV, candidates get more bang for the buck in smaller towns and rural areas.
If the National Popular Vote bill were to become law, it would not change the need for candidates to build a winning coalition across demographics. Any candidate who yielded, for example, the 21% of Americans who live in rural areas in favor of a “big city” approach would not likely win the national popular vote. Candidates would still have to appeal to a broad range of demographics, and perhaps even more so, because the election wouldn’t be capable of coming down to just one demographic, such as voters in Ohio.
With National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. It would no longer matter who won a state. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states.
“There is some debate about whether Congress would have to authorize the compact among states to make it binding.”
Nothing Congress can do can make it binding:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.” US Constitution, Article II, Section 1
There is no constitutional provision even requiring that people be allowed to vote for the electors.