# National Popular Vote Interstate Compact: Convincing states to join

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-popular-vote-interstate-compact-convincing-states-to-join/772729>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [November 22, 2016, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-popular-vote-interstate-compact-convincing-states-to-join/772729 "2016-11-22T10:42:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 45

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**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-popular-vote-interstate-compact-convincing-states-to-join/772729/45 "2016-11-23T15:22:32Z")

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> [@Dr.Strangelove](#):
>
> The top 5 cities in the US have a combined population of 18.9M people. The US population is 318M, making them only 6% of the total. The top 10 cities are 25.6M, or 8%. So, it’s simply false that one only has to win the major cities in a popular vote.
> 
> Furthermore, to the extent the argument is true at all, the EC system is still in every way worse. “Big cities in swing states” is a smaller set than “big cities in all states.”

The top six metropolitan statistical areas have more people than the winning candidate got votes in the last election.

And the whole point of the EC is that cities shouldn’t be in charge of who gets to be President. The EC requires candidates to build a national coalition of all kinds of people in all localities. A popular vote only requires a candidate pick a single pet issue that city folks can get worked up over, like gun control or park funding.

Without the Electoral College, you get people [like this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=811043) running the world:

> [@Is it possible to have an ultra dense city that has a low cost of living?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-have-an-ultra-dense-city-that-has-a-low-cost-of-living/772124/1):
>
> I want to see rural strongholds emptied out and stripped of whatever shadows of population they have left beyond the bare essentials. Saving that, I’d like to see the urban centers we know as cities expand outward to encompass more area.
> 
> If the cities are to be the liberal stronghold, and rural america is the home of conservatives, I want to drain the swamp of conservatism and make it FAR more desirable to move to the city, I want better economic prospects than there are now, I want the decision to stay rural to be so destructive that even the Sarah Palins of the world will strap on rocket boots to move to modernity.

Good luck getting the rubes to agree to _that_ deal.

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