The US was not designed as a direct democracy, though. Bemoaning the design only when 'your side' loses is a problem that should be relegated to young children. I haven't voted for the winner for quite a few elections now but I don't think throwing out the entire system is the right answer because I didn't get my way.

If you want to start movements in individual states changing the first past the post system, I think that's a logical first step. Colorado recently changed their primary system to be more open, so we will see what that impact has on their elections soon. But what I see is people wanting to throw out the entire system and start over, which is the rhetoric that got Trump elected in the first place.

I assume by 'several million Americans' you're talking about the territories and Washington DC. The territories consistently vote to keep themselves territories, so they choose to remain "unrepresented" in Congress. I don't think letting DC have a vote in Congress will help diminish the 'power' and 'will of the people' problem you are concerned about.

Sure, the current system is based on past choices. That does not mean it's a good system. I don't really care about Trump vs Hilary. I do care that because I moved my vote went from token effort to completely pointless.

If you look at the history of US presidential elections the map used to be a lot more fluid. Compare say 1972 with 1964: http://www.270towin.com/historical-presidential-elections/ And compare that with the string from 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016.

That recent trend is not by accident. Both party's have carefully crafted their message to maximize their chances of winning. But, that divide is all about minimizing the power of choice which is inherently corrosive.

My vote could be considered completely pointless every year, because I do not vote for either of the 2 major parties. So should I just give up and quit voting? Should a Republican in New York just give up voting? What about a Democrat in Kansas?

I think the change you should be advocating for is not throwing out the entire electoral college system, rather you should be advocating for small changes over time the system. Small changes might be easier to get through and I think immediate and severe reactions end up being worse than small changes (see the PATRIOT Act among others for examples of immediate action with huge unintended consequences). Citizen ballot initiatives could certainly start changing how delegates are selected, but you don't see (m)any Democrats calling for that in a state like California because it would hurt them overall, just like it would hurt Republicans in Kansas.

As a side note, I would be curious when states started passing laws binding delegates and how that relates to the outcome over time given by your map. I wonder if there is any correlation.

I haven't voted for the winner since 1996. As I don't see my own views or those of the major political parties changing any time soon, my voice is largely ignored in the current system.

And it will likely continue to be ignored until the following happen:

1. Abolish gerrymandering in favor of a strictly algorithmic approach to redistricting that cannot take into account voting data from prior elections or current party affiliations.

2. Abolish first-past-the-post, winner-take-all voting, probably using approval voting and some means of apportioning representation that is proportional to approvals.

3. Alter ballot access laws such that no party gets preferential treatment, and the burden is low enough overall that those people wishing to participate in politics are able to do so without quitting their day jobs.

> 2. Abolish first-past-the-post, winner-take-all voting, probably using approval voting and some means of apportioning representation that is proportional to approvals.

Approval plus proportional is a bizarre concept; approval, to the extent it makes any sense for public elections (and there are serious problems with it for that purpose) makes sense really only for inherently single-winner elections.

For proportional systems with large bodies elected together, proportionality to first-party votes is probably the most sensible; for bodies small enough that doing that has significant wastage due to the threshold necessary to get one seat, something like STV (possibly modified to drop loser elimination) makes more sense than approval.

(A proportional, STV-like generalization of approval with a form of winner elimination might make sense, but seems intuitively worse than STV itself, even if approval ballots had consistent meanings.)

I only chose approval as an alternative to FPTP because most current ballot-counting machines are capable of handling it with minimal alteration, and it reduces the effects of strategic voting.

It seems obvious to me that any voting system that involves ranking would tend to discourage more open ballot access, as people are more likely to honestly and accurately rank 2 or 3 people than they are to rank 10. If it can handle proportionality almost as well as single transferable vote, without additional complexity to the voter, it may actually be better fro ma practical standpoint.

Approval ballots is just a special case of ranked ballots with only two ranks, so as far as considering and honestly rating a large number of candidates is concerned, it shares any problem ranked ballots have.

While there are some good arguments for allowing ties in ranked ballots (unforced vs. forced preference), I think there are pretty big problems with forcing tied rankings.

> If it can handle proportionality almost as well as single transferable vote

I don't think it can, but because there is no clear mapping between actual preferences (or preferences that would be provided on an unforced preference ballot) and approval ballot (or any other limited-rank-preference ballot) markings, that's a hard empirical question that's not really analytically addressable.

And how, if we try to throw out the entire system, do you expect that to happen when it is clearly against the interest of the two major parties?

That's why I said the push shouldn't be to burn down the whole system, it should be minor changes that both major parties can agree to implement. You can't shoot for the moon if you can't even get a launch pad.

> And how, if we try to throw out the entire system, do you expect that to happen when it is clearly against the interest of the two major parties?

If eliminating the existing system is the goal, the way it is achieved is (as has been the case for many changes which aren't supported initially by the major parties) to first move it by, and in States which have, citizen initiative processes which supercede the preferences of elected partisan politicians.

That was exactly my point. Small changes make larger impacts than asking to nuke everything.

The probability of it happening within the current system is zero. The probability of it happening spontaneously after nuking the current system from orbit is infinitesimal. The expected value calculation from throwing out the current system is strongly negative, whereas the expected value from maintaining the status quo gains at about 2%-4% per year.

Therefore, the likely course of action is clear. Such reforms will never be implemented, and I will essentially be permanently disenfranchised.

I can react to this inevitability with outraged dismay, or with grim resignation. I know what would make me happy, and that it makes sense, and also that it will simply not happen, because this representative democracy is a sham. I can try to ruin things for everyone else because it isn't fair, or I can accept them as they are and take my pathetic, lopsided share of that 2%-4%.

I'll take the latter.

If, however, the status quo implodes on its own, or explodes because someone got rid of it, I'd be all too happy to try to push the new thing that replaces it towards a better direction.