> How many cities would we need to add together to get to roughly 50% of the population? While this is an interesting question, it's not the one that we should

> How many cities would we need to add together to get to roughly 50% of the population? While this is an interesting question, it's not the one that we should ask: Instead, what is the lowest number of flights a candidate needs to take to visit a majority of the voters' nearby area? If the candidate can drive for under three hours to arrive at another area, the trip does not qualify for a flight. See these links for the map visuals supporting this line of reasoning: http://www.arbesman.net/blog/2011/02/02/the-city-states-of-america/ http://www.arbesman.net/blog/2011/02/02/the-city-states-of-a... and https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/opinion/sunday/a-new-map-for-america.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/opinion/sunday/a-new-map-... A popular vote system decreases the number of flights substantially compared to the EC system, and would make much of the US utterly irrelevant in a national election. The EC system was created to prevent this from happening. Also, flights are a proxy for overall campaign spending. A popular vote system would reward spending on the most populous visits and (compared to the EC system) penalize visits to the least populous areas.