Editing Swing state (section)

== Criticism ==
{{main article|United States Electoral College#Impacts and reception|l1=Criticisms of the Electoral College}}
The Electoral College encourages political campaigners to focus most of their efforts on courting voters in swing states. States in which polling shows no clear favorite are usually targeted at a higher rate with campaign visits, television advertising, and [[get out the vote]] efforts by party organizers and debates. According to Katrina vanden Heuvel, a journalist for ''[[The Nation]]'', "four out of five" voters in the national election are "absolutely ignored".<ref name="tws2H14">{{cite news |author=vanden Heuvel |first=Katrina |date=November 7, 2012 |title=It's Time to End the Electoral College |work=The Nation |url=http://www.thenation.com/blog/171115/its-time-end-electoral-college |access-date=November 8, 2012 |quote=Electoral college defenders offer a range of arguments, from the openly anti-democratic (direct election equals mob rule), to the nostalgic (we’ve always done it this way), to the opportunistic (your little state will be ignored! More vote-counting means more controversies! The Electoral College protects hurricane victims!). But none of those arguments overcome this one: One person, one vote.}}</ref>

Since most states use a [[Plurality voting system|winner-takes-all]] arrangement, in which the candidate with the most votes in that state receives all of the state's electoral votes, there is a clear incentive to focus almost exclusively on only a few undecided states. In contrast, many states with large populations such as California, Texas and New York have in recent elections been considered "safe" for a particular party, and therefore not a priority for campaign visits and money. Meanwhile, twelve of the thirteen smallest states are thought of as safe for either party – only New Hampshire is regularly a swing state.<ref name="GeorgeEdwards">{{Cite book |last=Edwards III |first=George C. |title=Why the Electoral College is Bad for America |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-300-16649-1 |edition=Second |location=New Haven, Connecticut and London, England |pages=1, 37, 61, 176–177, 193–194 |language=en}}</ref> Additionally, campaigns stopped mounting nationwide electoral efforts in the last few months near/at the ends of the blowout 2008 election, but rather targeted only a handful of battlegrounds.<ref name="GeorgeEdwards" />