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Colorado To Vote on Electoral College Plan
siriuskase writes "Is it too much to ask of our technology/math skills to award electorial votes in proportion to the popular vote? Colorado might be up to the task. From the article:
On Nov. 2, voters will consider a proposal to immediately scrap the state's winner-take-all electoral vote system and allow candidates to keep a proportion of the delegates they win. In theory, a candidate could win 55 percent of the statewide vote and get only five of the state's nine electoral votes.
If the proposal had been in place four years ago, Gore would have earned enough electoral votes to go to the White House.
"
Colodrado is a clear Rebublican state. In 2000 Bush got 51% to Gore's 43%. In 1996 Dole won by a slim margin. Because of this the bill won't pass.
Actually, who controls the statehouse and the state legislature matters. This is exactly the kind of thing that states try to do when the presidential vote breaks opposite of local and state elections. It's tremedously shortsited and marginalizes the value of Colorado to candidates. Why do I care if I get 4 delegates and the opposition gets 5? Even in a close election... one elector isn't going to make that much difference.
It basically makes Colorado's vote totally and completely meaningless. Because candidates don't care how you vote, it will dilute the value of your vote and would have a dramatic effect long term on the number of pork barrel projects (read military and overengineered highway) that make it back to your state.
-- $G
This is a very "Bad Idea(TM)".
Firstly, it defeats the entire purpose of the electoral system--which was carefully designed by the founders to ensure that the majority (large states) could not trample the opinions of the minority (small states). The thought is the same as the dual nature of the House/Senate.
To essentially reduce the state battle to a purely popular vote will make campaigning in that state useless--as very few voters are truly undecided, the most you will gain is one EV, since the rest will vote along party lines no matter what.
If ALL states were to adopt a pure popular vote system, thus effectively eliminating the EV system for all intents and purposes, we would be in precisely the situation the founders worked to prevent--candidates need only garner the votes of people in a few large population centers, and the votes of those in less sparesly populated areas become completely irrelevant.
For those who argue about voting power, division of the vote into progressively smaller arenas in actuality increases your voting power. In a close election, if the tally were tied in a state, one vote in one district could switch the outcome of the election. Whereas a non-EV system would require a NATIONAL TIE for one vote to make the difference.
The point being, voting power grows in direct proportion to the likeliness of a tie. The more you divide the election arena, the more likely your one vote will break a tie and directly affect the election's outcome.
This is exactly the sort of system the founders indended, and if we are getting near-ties then it is working correctly!
It's amazing how the general populous has no problem with the idea of the Electoral College in other forms.
For example, let's say you have two baseball teams playing a "best of seven" series.
The games end up with the following scores:Who should be considered the "winner" of the series? Everybody will say "Team B". When asked "why?", they will say they won four games. "Even though Team A scored twice as many runs, you think that Team B should be the winner?" "Yes, those are the rules of the game".
But, as soon as you substitute "states" for "games" and "votes" for "runs" people have a hard time understanding why the EC works.
BTW, the results above are for the 1960 World Series in which the Pirates beat the Yankees in 7 games, but only scored 27 runs versus the Yanks 55. Incidentally, the 1960 also had the winner (JFK) lose the popular vote (to Nixon), but win the EC.
One of the major benefits of the EC is to make sure that the candidate is selected by a "geographic" majority, not a simple majority. I am not sure, but I can only imagine that the Framers wanted to protect, say, the North, from deciding alone who the President would be. The EC guarantees that the selected candidate have support across a large portion of the Union, not just in one area.
- Tony
I would REALLY like to see an enforcable nation-wide election-related media blackout during the voting period. I'm getting really tired of the media projecting or proclaiming a winner based on either exit polls or 3% of voting returns. And they present return information from the East coast prior to the closing of voting on the West coast. How fair is that? OK, I don't know if anyone has actually studied if return infromation really influences voters on election day, but it doesn't seem right.
Oh, and I really don't buy the "Freedom of Speech" or "Freedom of the Press" arguments--the process of electing a national leader is a serious process that should not be compromised by partisan media.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
But it can. What it will do is make the candidate pay attention to the state even if it is not a toss up state. As an example, look at NY right now. Do you think Bush is going to even try and campaign there? It was an early write off for him. NY is going to vote Democrat. Do you think Kerry is going to pay any attention to NY? Why would he? He's going to win it. He's going to focus efforts in contested states.
The effect of splitting the electors is to make every state contested, and force the candidates to pay attention to all of them.
There's one thing I'd like to see done differently from the plan mentioned. Instead of a porportional system, I'd like to see a system where the candidate gets each elector based on which congressional districts they win the popular vote for. The 2 additional electors would go to the person who wins the popular vote for the entire state independant of congressional districts. This would localize the election even more, and it's similar to how the House and Senate are elected.
When will Windows be ready for the desktop?
I'm not sure I buy that argument. If you take your example and add 5 more states to it: Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, New Jersey, and North Carolina you can make the same statement about the electoral college. OK, presidential candidate X makes outlandish claims to 11 states (no taxes, free beer, etc) to get their vote. He can win the election with 271 votes from the electoral college (The total value of the states you mention plus mine). Not very fair to the other 39 states is it?
I know we're both guilty of simplifying things, but I still feel change is needed.
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No, it doesn't make it meaningless. Under the current plan, in most states, it doesn't matter whether you beat your opponent(s) for President by 1% or 20%, as long as you beat them. It's a winner take all situation, which means if you know you're going to win that state AND it's not worth that many electoral votes, you tend to stay out of it to focus on "swing states".
Now, under this proposed plan, it matter how much you beat your opponents by. Instead of trying to get a bare 1% over your opponent, you want as many votes as possible. Thus, you have to appeal to as many voters as possible and get them to vote. You'd see greater drives for voter registration, an attempt to acquire and retain the voters interest, and possibly actually talking about issues instead of hyping whatever factoid your campaign staff has determined would get you that 1% over the other guys.
Here's another example. In the 2000 Presidential election, California, which is worth a whopping 55 electoral votes, went to Gore. Out of 10,530,073 votes cast, Gore got 5,861,203 of them, which worked out to 55.66%. Bush got 4,567,429 votes, or 43.37%. Under the current rules, Gore got all the electoral votes, which means that those 4.5 million people might as well not have voted at all. Under a proportional system, Gore would have gotten 31 electoral votes, and Bush would have gotten 24.
It's a fairer system for making votes count. It also means that it is possible (although, inarguably still not likely) to vote for a third party candidate and not "throw your vote away".
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Like many other situations (true line-item-vetos, for instance), neither party wants to change the current situation for fear the other party will benefit (or worse yet, those evil 3rd parties).
California is a good example, though, because Nader, for instance, could've gained as many as 2 electoral votes there, and Bush could've gained 20-something quite easily, while Gore would've come up with just 28 or 29, instead of 54. That's the sort of thing that could actually make a big difference.
Additionally, the only reason Bush is even paying attention to California at all is because his father was the last Republican to carry the state (but not in the re-election) in a Presidential race, and Arnold took over as governor. The polls certainly aren't showing him doing any better there now than he did four years ago. So, when both candidates normally ignore such a large state simply because state-wide elections tend to go to the democrats (look at its house members vs. senate members), splitting the votes would either not change the situation or would improve it, as the split in the votes can make a very big difference in the national election.
10 million people voted in California in 2000. There are more people eligible to vote in the surrounding county of any one of the three largest cities in the state. Of course, when over 4 million people in California voted for Bush, and weren't counted in the electoral college that ultimately decided the election, it's easy to see why so many people that are eligible to vote in that state simply don't.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Since when is an election a game?
...ta-da! And the fact that it is electoral votes prevents a bad showing in NYC and LA from destroying a chance to win the election.
How isn't it a game?
And in the example you give, the fact that it is games won and lost prevents a bad showing at one game by the more successful team from destroying a chance to win the series.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
If Colorado were to pass such a bill, it would be the third state to award electoral votes this way.
Ok, how hard can it really be to just do away with the whole electoral college thing?
Not hard in one sense: just amend the Constitution. The problem is that you need three fourths of states to ratify that change, and more than 1/4 of the states benefit from the existing system.
There are many arguments against a popular vote, but for me, the most compelling is that the President is not supposed to be the leader of the people of the United States of America, but the leader of the United States of America. I know that many people don't see any difference between those two things, but there used to be, and I think it's a distinction worth supporting.
I think we have gone too far. I think there should be no votes for electors. I think electors should be chosen by state legislatures, like they used to be. This would put the focus of elections where it really belongs: on the state governments. You would think a hell of a lot more about who you were voting for in the state Senate and House races if those were the people selecting your electoral votes.
However, that isn't the case. Instead they focus on the districts that are in question, which may exist where the state as a whole's stance may be more sure one way or another.
Maine is different in two important ways. First, it's system is different than Colorado's proposal, in that the winner of each district wins that vote, and the statewide winner gets the other two, so you are fighting not for the one additional vote likely in Colorado, but 2 or 3 additional votes. Second, Maine is much smaller.
Where would you send your ad dollars? A small state -- meaning much less expense -- to attempt to get 2-3 more votes, or a large state -- meaning much more expense -- to attempt to get 1 more vote? This will drive ad dollars away from Colorado, and even Maine would become more attractive by comparison.
This, of course, will mean that Colorado will immediately become the least-interesting state of the Union to Presidential candidates
You are incorrect in this statement, but only by manner of being incomplete. It will be the least interesting state to the Democratic and Republican party candidates. To the third parties, this suddenly becomes the MOST interesting state. It's the only realistic way to get electoral votes.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
How can things get worse for third-party candidates? Right now, no third-party candidate has a chance of even getting one electoral college vote. If we had a voting system that more closely mirrored the popular vote (either by eliminating the EC or making each state's EC vote match the popular vote), then third-party candidates would at least get something.
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But doesn't the system disenfranchise a large number of voters?
Suppose I'm a Democrat and I live in Texas, or I'm a Republican and I live in New York. In either case, my vote is worthless, and my voice isn't heard.
It seems to me that the fairest system is just to go to a straight popular vote. One person, one vote. Why should the value of my vote vary depending on what state I live in?
the elctoral college is supposed to prevent fads and trends of the people messing up and selecting someone incompetent to be president. Like in California.
Oh yes. Thanks to the Electoral College, there's no way we could ever send some incompetent B movie actor to the White House. Or some trailer trash from the South that hits on anything that moves. Or some spoiled bratty rich kid whose only accomplishments are waiting for his daddy to get him out of trouble, dodging the draft, and trading away Sammy Sosa.
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In fact, most of the least populous states will never receive a visit or serious attention from the major party candidates because so many of those states are solidly R or D. In Idaho, I can't recall any visits from pres candidates because we're already chalked up in the "R" column by both parties. And Ohio will likely receive more attention than every Western state combined this year. A popular vote would increase the chance of voters in small states having their voices heard. I found a good op-ed by the leader of ReclaimDemocracy.org -- a nonpartisan pro-democracy group that appears to have first advanced this idea as a legislative bill in some states a few years back (the Denver Post mangled the formatting): http://63.147.65.175/opinion/guest0315.htm