•October 19, 2016•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

My sample election ballot offers me slim pickings in terms of votes I can cast that might make a difference. We can do better.

The presidential camps long ago conceded Illinois to Hillary. As you have probably noticed, there is little active campaigning in our state.

As most readers know, ours is not a popular election for president. Instead, it is a contest in which most states cast all their electoral votes based on the winner of the state’s overall popular vote. (Electors are apportioned to states somewhat proportionate to population.)

Thus the candidates ignore states where the popular vote outcome is, based on intensive polling, a foregone conclusion. The candidates instead focus their time and money on so-called “battleground states” such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and a few others where the outcome can go either way.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.