Ever since Bush won in 2000, Democrats have been looking for ways to tweak the Electoral College so that Gore could have won. Now Geek is worried about New Jersey's plan to change how they determine their slate of electors. Apparently they are planning to make it so voters in New Jersey don't really matter by giving their votes to which ever candidate wins the National "popular vote".

If this change is as Geek describes it, not much would change. Yeah, NJ would have voted for Gore in 2000 (they did anyway) but they would have gone Bush in 2004 (which they didn't).

This only matters if carried to the extreme. If ALL states did this the electoral college would be all or nothing nationwide, and candidates would no longer campaign outside of the major cities. That's the downside to a popular vote. It's this downside that would keep other states from adopting such a model. Why would North Dakota give away their votes based on how people in New York, Texas, and California voted? They'd have to be stupid to outsource what little influence they already have.

What's worse is what Colorado attempted to do. They tried to apportion their votes based on the state's popular vote. That would assure that their votes would almost always be split 50/50 to 60/40, making their state essentially worthless for campaigning. No candidate would step foot in Colorado just to get a mere 1 or 2 net votes.