The Electoral College Should Distribute Votes Proportionally

I agreed to letting him debate about his counterplan.RebuttalsWhy my plan benefits the US1. Plan makes the probability of a loser winning abysmal.While it may be true that losers still could potentially win in a proportional system, the chances of it happening is minuscule. Keeping the current system keeps the probability of a loser winning high, and abolishing the electoral college would bring too many negatives with it (more on that later). For a candidate to win the electoral college without winning the popular vote in a proportional system, they would have to: A. Win 100% of all the votes in states with more electoral votes than they should have and B. Somehow make their opponent only win bigger states by a large margin. This would in turn make it so the candidate would earn more electoral votes than popular votes. However, this scenario is highly unlikely since most of the time both candidates would earn electoral votes from those small states, candidates will probably never earn all the votes in those smaller states, and both candidates would earn votes from bigger states too. My opponent's argument is based off the winner-take-all system, since it relies on the fact that one candidate would win almost 100% of all the votes in the small states. He also ignores the fact that the candidate would also earn votes from the bigger states too. My opponent's argument is nullified under a proportional system.2. Small states should get those extra votesThe issue with my opponent's argument is that he fails to see the purpose of giving the small states more power in the electoral college. Without the electoral college, candidates wouldn't care about smaller states and their concerns. Rather, they would only focus on bigger states and their concerns, pandering to those states. Therefore, smaller states would never get their issues addressed and their voices heard, as the candidates don't care about those states. The electoral college makes it so candidates that are only popular in a couple big states lose, since our presidents should be appealing to most of America [1]. For example, if a candidate is popular in California and Texas and a couple other bigger states in a popular vote system, they would earn most of the votes they would need. However, he's only popular in those regions, and the rest of the world resents the candidate, as he doesn't stand for those states' beliefs. The electoral college forces a candidate to appeal to most of the country, rather than a couple key big states.3. Proportional voting represents the people much better than the current systemAs explained in my previous argument, the plan would represent the people much better than the winner take all system, and my opponent does nothing to contest this. It is obvious that a direct vote would be more representative, but a direct vote would be disastrous (more on that later).4. Having a defense is better than none at allTell me, even if the electoral college hasn't defended us from a bad candidate anything yet, would you rather not have a defense at all? A candidate so bad that it merits the electoral college voting for someone else hasn't come along yet, but it doesn't mean it never will. What my opponent is proposing, is that since it hasn't done anything yet to defend us, we should get rid of it. We might as well have a defense, even if it hasn't done anything yet. Many people viewed Trump as unqualified, but he obviously was appealing to enough of the political insiders that make up the electoral college. It's better to have a 2nd line of defense in the event of a truly terrible candidate, instead of none at all.5. Opponent concedes that plan promotes fairer campaigning.This argument wasn't contested in my opponent's last argument. Therefore, he concedes the fact that my plan would promote fairer campaigning. Don't let him make an argument about this in the next round, as he had already conceded it in round 2.6. Opponent concedes that plan makes party minorities matterThis argument wasn't contested by my opponent in his last argument either. Therefore, he concedes that my plan makes party minorities in traditionally "solid blue" or "solid red" states matter. Also don't let him make an argument about this in the next round, because he had already conceded it in round 2.7. Opponent concedes that plan encourages votingThis argument wasn't contested by the opponent. Therefore, he concedes that my plan encourages voting by making people's vote count more. Don't let him make any more arguments about it because he conceded it previously.Why a Popular Vote is Bad8. It's not big cities, it's large, metropolitan areasMy opponent is correct in stating that just winning the big cities wouldn't win you the presidency. However, winning most of the metropolitan areas of America would definitely win you the presidency. The major metropolitan areas don't even come close to being spread out across the country, they are small, concentrated areas where a lot of people live. The picture speaks for itself. Additionally, as stated before, this would cause candidates to not care about smaller states, so their concerns wouldn't be addressed. A popular vote would let candidates who are only popular in small parts of the country win.9. America wants small states to have some power.Yes, America values democracy. However, it is also evident that America also wants small states to have some power (reasons why that's good stated above). How is it evident you ask? Well, the Senate is proof that America values small states. Why? Every state has 2 senators in the Senate. This is so small states still have power in congress, and get their issues addressed. If Congress was run purely on population, namely the House of Representatives, the smaller states would be irrelevant. Small state issues still matter. The Senate and House were made as a compromise between the big states and the small states. The small states wanted everyone to have equal say, and the big states wanted power distributed by population. The government made a compromise, and created both, so the small and big states would both matter. The Senate proves that America still wants small states to have power. The Electoral College helps with that, by giving small states more power in the election than they technically should, in order to get their voice heard. A direct vote makes small states irrelevant, making candidates only care about issues in big states and also makes them pander to big states at expense of the small states.Arguments10. Changing how votes are awarded is much easier to do than to abolish the electoral collegeFiat doesn't apply to counterplan. We can still debate whether or not the counterplan would pass.In order to abolish the electoral college, we would have to amend the Constitution. That takes a whole lot of work, and is unlikely to pass. To amend the constitution, you need to first gain 2/3 support from both the House and the Senate, and then win the support of 3/4 of the states. [2] That's too hard. However, in order to change how votes are distributed, you would just need to get the states to change how they award votes. In fact, two states use a different system to award electoral votes: Nebraska and Maine. They have a Congressional District system, where the candidates get votes based on who won the most congressional districts, on top of the popular vote [3]. The Constitution doesn't say how votes should be awarded, and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the states' role in awarding electoral votes is "supreme." [3]. Therefore, all we would need to do to change how the Electoral College works, is to just get the states to award the electoral votes based on proportion. This is much easier than amending the Constitution.Sources[1]: https://www.cato.org...[2]: http://occasionalplanet.org...[3]: http://uspolitics.about.com...