By STEVE BRAWNER | Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The presidential election is five-and-a-half months away. But thanks to the Electoral College, unless you live in one of nine states, your vote has already been counted and/or discounted by the candidates.

That’s because the election looks like it will come down to seven “battleground” states. Those are Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin and maybe North Carolina. Also potentially in play are one congressional district each in Maine and Nebraska. 

Some of those states may not actually be battlegrounds. The latest New York Times-Philadelphia Inquirer-Siena College poll shows Trump leading by seven points in Arizona and Michigan, 10 in Georgia, and 12 in Nevada.  

Every other state is solidly red or blue – including Arkansas, perhaps the nation’s reddest. Former President Trump will win Arkansas’ six Electoral College votes, just as he did the past two elections. In 2020, he won 62.4% of the vote in Arkansas while President Biden won 34.8%. Four years earlier, Trump led the state’s and nation’s former first lady, Hillary Clinton, 60.6% to 33.65%. 

What all this means is that the election in Arkansas – and in roughly 40 other states – is pre-ordained. To borrow a phrase from William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” there will be plenty of sound and fury these next five-and-a-half months, but it will signify nothing, and especially not here. 

That being so, the candidates will spend hundreds of millions of dollars, but not to reach Arkansans. Instead, they’ll focus on a small group of voters in a few states – particularly in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – who essentially will decide who the next president will be. Biden and Trump will practically live in those and the other battleground states, barely giving Arkansas a second thought.

This is not a good thing. A presidential election should be a national conversation about the country’s present and future. It should not be an exercise in pinpointing spots on a map and then bombarding those poor souls with TV and online ads. Every citizen’s vote should not only be counted, but courted. 

One solution, of course, is a national popular vote. That would be preferable to the Electoral College as it now exists, but it would take state preferences out of the picture, and it would be such a significant change that it would be unacceptable to many people. Plus, a national recount in a close race would be extremely messy. Another option is to do what Maine and Nebraska do, which is award electors by congressional district with an additional two electors going to the state’s winner. That’s why one district in each state is in play this year.

Again, that’s better than what we have, but congressional districts don’t necessarily reflect a state’s makeup. Instead, the majority party often draws them using squiggly lines to elect as many of its members as possible. That practice is known as gerrymandering.

Let’s borrow from Maine and Nebraska but put a different spin on it. Let’s keep the Electoral College as a statewide contest so that it reflects an entire state and not the congressional districts the partisan politicians draw up. But then let’s multiply the number of electors in each state by 10, and award them according to the percentage of the popular vote the candidates win statewide. A candidate would have to win 3% to win any electors.

Arkansas under this scenario would have divided 60 electors in 2020. Trump with his 62.4% would have won 37 of them. Biden with his 34.8% would have won 21. That leaves two extra that no one qualified for. Give them to Trump because he won the state. 

Then give Trump an additional 10% of the state’s total electoral count – another six votes – as the state’s winner. That would have given him a total of 45.

Maybe you don’t like this idea because you like that Trump won all of Arkansas’ electors in 2020. But remember that under the current system, Biden won all 54 of California’s electors. That’s exactly one-fifth of the 270 he needed to get elected. Under the system I’m proposing, Trump would have won his share of California’s electors. 

A modified Electoral College like I’m proposing would give the candidates from both political parties an incentive to run national campaigns rather than focus on a few states. 

In fact, they wouldn’t have a choice. Since every vote would figure into the Electoral College count, they’d have to court our votes in Arkansas – for a change. 

Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen in an election?

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist published in 17 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com. Follow him on X at @stevebrawner.