The Electoral College Revisited

[andyfox]

In the three biggest states, there will be no campaigning this year. Kerry will win New York and California and Bush will win Texas. Those electoral votes are, in effect, already decided.

So millions of people will effectively be disenfranchised. Bush will probably receive more votes in California than any other state except Texas, but those votes will count for nothing.

Why not a proportional system? If California has 54 electoral votes, give the winner of the state half of those votes, and then divide the rest proportionally according to the vote. So if Kerry gets, say, 60%, he would get 27 + 16 electoral votes, and Bush would get 11.

Maybe someone more industrious than I can figure out how the 2000 election would have come out had this system been in place.

[Ray Zee]

maybe all peoples votes should be equal, and do away with the electoral college. its main purpose (imho) is to limit the amount of candidates to two. this way we dont have so much to worry about.

[Ed Miller]

Why not a proportional system?

It's still not quite "right," as what happens when someone wins 51% of the vote in Wyoming? How about 72%?

But furthermore, I believe the states decide how to elect their electors. Short of a Constitutional amendment, there's no way to alter this. And if there is a Constitutional amendment, then I think we clearly should simply ditch the whole College.

[eLROY]

Sure, that's easy. If the vote was proportional, then the candidate favored by the most dishonest state would have won the 2000 election. You would have had a nationwide recount in every state, in a race to see who could lie the most.

There was not perfect voting information and monitoring technology in the time of the founding fathers, or in our time or any time in the future. It's a pretty safe assumption that state authorities would always say all their votes went for whomever they voted 51% for, in an effort to maximize each state's role in the republic.

The cost of dishonest voting must always be weighed against the benefit. If you create a situation where the benefit is too big, and where there are no natural checks and balances, you increase lying. Do you think states want federal incumbents running state elections?

[ChristinaB]

[ QUOTE ]
But furthermore, I believe the states decide how to elect their electors. Short of a Constitutional amendment, there's no way to alter this. And if there is a Constitutional amendment, then I think we clearly should simply ditch the whole College.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is a practical solution that would not require 3/4 of the states to approve (the number needed to pass an amendment)

If a group of states (swing states especially) decided that they would award all of their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner, the dynamics of the current system would die on the vine.

No one could win without the block of say 150 electoral votes that 15 states could deliver to the popular vote winner. So the value of a vote everywhere would now matter, since everyone's vote in every state is included in the national popular vote.

The states have a right to assign their votes this way if they choose, and only a minority of states would have to agree to do it.

[andyfox]

I've done the math; see my And the Winner Is . . . post

[benfranklin]

The Electoral College was designed to prevent very large, high-population states from dominating the smaller states solely on the basis of their population. The Founding Fathers saw that as necessary at the time. If we have out-grown that need, and I am not convinced that we have, there are several options. One is a Constitutonal amendment to change to a simple majority or plurality system. Catch-22: never happen, because the smaller states would never ratify such an amendment.

The other option is for the states to change their Electoral system. The federal rules do not mandate a winner take all system. A state has X electoral votes, which it can award in any way it chooses by state law. The vast majority simply give all of its votes to the majority winner of the popular vote in that state. A few states (I believe Nebraska is one) provide for allocating electoral votes based on popular vote.

My memory is hazy, but this is how I think the Nebraska system works. The state has 2 Senators and 3 Representatives, and therefore gets 5 electoral votes. The 2 "Senate" votes go to the candidate that gets the over-all popular majority in the state. Each of the 3 "Representatives" votes goes to the winner of the popular vote within each of the three Congressional districts. In a relatively small state like Nebraska, I would think that this would usually translate into a 5-0 vote distribution most of the time, and occasionally a 4-1 vote. But I could see a much wider distribution in the biggest states, where the "loser" might pick up as much as 25% of the electoral votes, based on regional differences within the state.

Catch 22 revisited: The dominant party in a state is not going to make any changes to its electoral laws that would give anything away to the minority party. And the feds are not going to make any changes in the system to take the decisions away from the states. In fact, I don't think that the feds could make the states do it any one particular way without a Constitutional amendment.

[Toro]

I'm not a history expert by any means but the way I understand it, there is actually a reason for the Electoral College. The concern is that small States will be ignored. Just as it is set up that each State regardless of size gets two representatives to the U.S. Senate, the electoral college prevents the candidates from just campaigning in the most popualted States and ignoring the rest.

I'm not saying I agree with the rationale, just stating it as I have heard it explained.

[eLROY]

Hah! Let's give all our votes to whomever Oklahoma voted for. I'm sure that would go over well in Texas.

[MMMMMM]

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