Thanks to the electoral college, the United States holds elections in which the candidate who wins the most votes doesn't always win the presidency. Voters in some states matter much more than others, so candidates are encouraged to ignore the concerns of the less important ones and focus on those who really make a difference. That, in turn, tends to lower turnout because many voters believe their input doesn't matter. Is this any way to run a democracy?

The answer might seem obvious to most Americans — in fact, polls have shown that large majorities in both parties favor reforming the presidential election system. But it's not so obvious to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who in 2006 vetoed a bill that would have rendered the electoral college moot and awarded the presidency to the winner of the national majority vote. The same bill has once again made its way through the Legislature, offering Schwarzenegger the chance to do the right thing.

Four states — Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey — have already passed legislation proposed by National Popular Vote, a Silicon Valley-based nonprofit founded by a Stanford professor who came up with a brilliant way to circumvent the electoral college. States simply have to agree to award their electoral votes to the winner of the majority vote nationwide. This would go into effect only if states controlling more than half the electoral votes sign on. If California, with 55 votes, were to join, it would give a big boost to the national movement.

The only way to do away with the electoral college entirely would be to amend the Constitution, which takes a two-thirds vote of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states. There are enough swing states that benefit from the current system, such as Ohio and Florida, to derail any attempt at an amendment. Though the National Popular Vote idea offends constitutional purists, it in no way violates the Constitution, which allows states to allocate their electoral votes any way they wish.

Schwarzenegger's rationale for vetoing the popular-vote bill two years ago was that it disregarded "the will of a majority of Californians" because it could award the state's electoral votes to a candidate the state's voters didn't approve. That's a very odd argument. The state's choice of a candidate is irrelevant if its pick doesn't win elsewhere. Sidestepping the electoral college simply assures that the majority would rule in the presidential race, just as it does in every other election in this country except the one for its highest office. Moreover, it would force candidates to devote far more attention to California, and would enfranchise California Republicans, whose votes currently matter little in this overwhelmingly blue state.

The bill, SB 37 from Sen. Carole Midgen (D-San Francisco), would benefit the state and the nation. Schwarzenegger should sign it.

A PROPOSED EXPERIMENT with majority rule has generated plenty of naysayers who apparently think that some nations are simply too immature to let people directly choose their own leaders. But we say the United States is ready for real democracy.

The experiment is the National Popular Vote campaign, which intends to undermine the Constitution's anachronistic Electoral College. If the campaign succeeds, future presidents will take office only if they win the popular vote nationwide.

The ingenious scheme was developed by John R. Koza, a Stanford professor who also invented the scratch-off lottery ticket. It calls on state legislatures to pass a measure dictating that all the electoral votes from that state go to the winner of the national popular vote. It goes into effect only if enough states approve it to represent a majority of the electoral votes. In other words, if states that represent at least 270 of the 538 electoral votes all approve the measure, the winner of the popular vote nationwide would automatically win the presidency. It thus renders the Electoral College moot without eliminating it.

This kind of end run is necessary because the only way to get rid of the Electoral College entirely is via a constitutional amendment, which would be nearly impossible to pass. Enough small states benefit from the current system to block an amendment. The beauty of this approach is that each state is constitutionally allowed to allot its electoral votes as it sees fit. The measure was approved by California's Assembly on Tuesday and is pending in four other states; backers hope to get it before all 50 states by January.

Anyone wondering why he should care about the Electoral College need look no further than the 2000 election, when George W. Bush won the presidency despite getting about half a million fewer votes than Al Gore. If that makes conservatives think they should be thankful that the majority doesn't always rule in the United States, they should think again. The same thing nearly happened in reverse in 2004. If John Kerry had picked up a mere 60,000 more votes in Ohio, he would have won — even though Bush took in 3 million more votes overall.

The Electoral College doesn't skew just election results; it skews elections. Candidates know they don't have to campaign in states that either clearly favor them or clearly don't; they have to focus only on swing states. In the 2004 campaign, Bush and Kerry spent a great deal of time brushing up on agricultural policy and other issues of vital concern in Iowa, while ignoring matters important to people in states such as California, Texas and New York.

Opponents argue that the current system ensures that smaller states continue to have a say in setting national policy. But the U.S. Senate already gives Delaware every bit as much clout as California. Any method besides majority vote empowers some citizens at the expense of others and makes the president beholden to minority interests.

At its inception, the United States was, well, a union of states. But it is now one nation, and our president should be elected by the citizens of that nation, not by its constituent states. To argue otherwise is to say that some Americans should have more power to elect a president than others simply because of where they live. Remember, all men are created equal. Including Californians and New Yorkers.