There's a problem with American presidential campaigns. Leaving aside the obvious joke about the candidates, the reality of modern campaigning's micro-targeting and voter identification and turn out operations is that most of the country doesn't figure into the outcome.

It's true all states count (and are counted) as part of the Electoral College. But with partisan alignments holding as strongly as they do – and the U.S. is experiencing a period of remarkable, almost unheard of stability in that regard – there are only a few states, and a few counties or a specific region within those states, that really matter as far as picking the president goes.

Think about it. Absent something untoward, California will go for Hillary Clinton in November and Texas will go to Donald Trump. These outcomes are already baked into the process, meaning neither candidate will spend much time at all in the nation's two largest states by population except when they have to raise money.

Here's another example that should be startling. Both Trump and Clinton call New York home but neither is spending much time there. That's because both campaigns operate from the presumption New York will once again go to the Democrats in the upcoming election – and by something close to 1 million votes. It's not close enough to matter and there's little to suggest it ever will be.

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The big states, more or less, don't count in presidential elections. Neither do the small ones, except as a factor in winning a major party nomination. No, the only states that count are the ones on the bubble – the swing states that could go either way as each candidate tries to cobble together a majority of 270 or more votes in the Electoral College.

Look at the map. The Democrats started off the cycle with about 200 electoral votes safely in the party's pocket – half of it coming from the really big states. The GOP has half that, coming mostly from flyover country. With divisions like that, pre-set as they are, the only rational thing under the existing system is to campaign in the states that make up the difference. This is why, for example, Florida and Ohio get so much attention from both candidates and their organizations while other large to moderately-sized states like Massachusetts, Minnesota, Michigan, New Jersey and Illinois only have a candidate come into the state to change planes on the way to somewhere else.

All this may be good for the consultants who have to prioritize time, money and other vital resources, but it's not at all good for the American people. The states that matter, and the issues that matter within those states, get a disproportionate amount of attention in setting the nation's agenda.

It doesn't have to be that way. One proposal gaining traction is to consider the National Popular Vote as the basis for determining the outcome of the election. It's an idea first raised with any degree of seriousness after the 2000 election when former Vice President Al Gore got more votes for president than George W. Bush but lost the presidency. Of late though, with Barack Obama and Clinton standing on top of what looks like an insurmountable blue wall keeping the Republicans out of the White House, conservatives are starting to look at it too.

Simply put, the National Popular Vote is a compact of states in which they all agree to award their electors on the basis of who won the national popular vote for president rather than on a winner-take-all basis within the state, as is the case in all but two of the 50 states currently. It would not abolish the Electoral College; it would simply change the way states participating in the compact would award their electors.

It's not a perfect solution but it's worth serious consideration. It's a way to make every vote count – which is as it should be. A presidential candidate might be certain of losing one of the big states by 1 million votes, but what if that loss could be offset by driving up turnout in states certain to go into their column by more than 1 million over what are the traditional margins, because an incentive now existed to go into states, campaign, recruit volunteers and spend money?

The winner-take-all system, which wasn't formerly adopted by most states until around the time of the Civil War, is not the only way to pick a president. Maine and Nebraska do it differently, which sometimes brings them attention that would otherwise go elsewhere if the consultants driving campaign strategy think the election might be close enough.

There are other ideas out there too – like awarding electoral votes based on congressional district performance in presidential contests or proportionally. These ideas also have merit and should be discussed. The point is we have to find a system that incentivizes people to turn out and vote. Democratic republics don't work if people stay home thinking their vote doesn't count: That eventually leads to oligarchy, despotism or worse, rule by an unelected bureaucracy accountable to no one.