There are 51 POPULAR elections in the individual states and District of Columbia. The popular vote for those individual states is counted and then whoever won there is the winner for that state. If you make it a popular vote count for the entire nation, the cities control the elections and the rural and exurban areas might as well not vote at all because their views will never win another election. Our Founders were prescient in realizing that meant that vast swaths of the country and most of the landowners would become chattel to the interests of a tiny portion of the country.

I for one am an Alaskan before I am an American. I choose not to live on top of my neighbor and within walking distance of my place of work. I prefer to grow my own food (to the extent you can in Alaska) rather than have some slave do it outside of my sight. And that is exactly what happens when the EC goes away ... the "flyover" states and Alaska become resource-extracting slaves to New York and California.