The same reasons other elections aren’t national and are by region. Or why there’s not state wide elections for state representatives in state governments. It’s a way of dividing up into areas that while proportional to population also account for geographic differences.
Except that it wouldn’t be the same as a simple majority at all.
It’s unfortunate that how to divide up electors is a state decision and not something that’s simply consistent across all states. It wasn’t always winner take all, just like it’s not that way everywhere.
A method that splits a states electors but keeps the electoral college prevents the small states from loosing all relevance. It would make the elector distribution much more like how the house and senate are split up. I definitely favor something that does this. Either by district (and have to deal with gerrymandering just like house seats), or simply proportional across the entire state. I’m not sure which is better. If we solve the gerrymandering issue for districts, that’s probably the better answer.
Without this, going to a simple majority across the entire county, just using the popular vote only creates other issues. It makes the election simply about the big cities and big states and nothing else. The winner-takes-all state assignment makes it feel similar because of “safe” states, but solving them to not be “safe” and have a better distribution is the better answer. Otherwise, it’s just as bad. On pure popular votes, win NY, the CA cities, Chicago, Dallas and Houston, and you’re just about done. You don’t even need to worry about the rest, they are simply overwhelmed.
Might as well just hold the election in the top 10 media markets and ignore the rest.
Winner take all distribution is still stupid. But, pure popular nationwide is just as bad.
