2000 Election with Proportional Electoral Votes

Trillian_1138 writes "I just finished hammering out a quick analyzation of the US 2000 Presidential Election and thought Slashdot might find it interesting. Specifically, what if all states had used a proportional assignment of electoral votes, in stead of the present all-or-nothing assignment most states use? Well, here's what I found. In the end, if every state had assigned their electoral votes in a proportional fashion, Bush would have defeated Gore in 2000, 259.008 to 253.077. The system I used allowed for percentages of votes, which is very unlikely to happen, but I still think the results are interesting. Check it out, and please let me know what you think. I'm not sure if having the electoral college AND proportional assignment of votes defeats the intention of the Electoral College in the first place, and the current Electoral College system does ensure one candidate must win a majority of Electoral votes, which the system I made would fail to meet. Oh well..."

Comments

Re:I don't mind being the first....

[WhiteBandit]

Though this doesn't conclusively show that Bush wins, since neither candidate would receive the minimum requirement of 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

Should be "quick analysis".

[Futurepower(R)]

Quote from the Slashdot story: "quick analyzation"

Should be "quick analysis". Slashdot is the only publication I've seen where editors do not need to know their own language.

--
George W. Bush's brother was on 20/20 talking about his prostitutes. Family values?

Re:Hmm

[N3WBI3]

Actually no, it would not. On a state level yes it would be a percent. But on the national level the smaller states liky Wymoing have a higher weight because of the 2 extra votes they get from the senate..

Ties?

[cbr2702]

When a tie happens the House of representaives votes (1 vote per state) to elect the president. If they tie then the Senate chooses a president to serve until the House comes into agreement. I can't remember the details completely, somehow the vice president candidates are involved (perhaps these are chosen to serve temporarily?)

Perhaps you might find the 12th amendment illuminating.

From amendment 12:

The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote

And from amendment 20:

If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified

As a final note; if you live in the US, be willing to read your constitution.

I've been doing a similar thing....

[hobo2k]

First of all, to win you must have 270 votes or more. Less than that and the CONGRESS will get to decide who wins. That is obviously not desirable.

Anyway, I've been taking the poll numbers from www.electoral-vote.com to do similar analysis. I'm looking at three possible systems. Winner-take-all (the current system), all electoral votes go to the winner in the state. Proportional, the state's votes are divided based on the percentage of actual votes (as the article did). And Maine-style, two votes given to the winner, the rest are divided by percentage.

From sep19 till today, the results for each system are as follows:
Winner-take-all: Bush wins 12 days, kerry wins 2 days.
Maine-style: Bush wins 7 days, the rest are tied.
Proportional: Every day is a tie.

So, unless we scrap the entire electoral college. Winner-take-all is the only way to actually have a winner and not let the congress break the tie.

No, the Electoral College would not be negated

[C10H14N2]

I'm not sure if having the electoral college AND proportional assignment of votes defeats the intention of the Electoral College in the first place

...no. The point of the Electoral College is to enforce the states' rights to determine the means of their elections, including their participation in federal elections. The constitution states that they must have a popular election, but how they organize that election and what they do with the result is their business.

A state could choose to have its electors chosen by drawing straws and their respective votes by throwing darts if they felt like it as there's no law that says the electors have to vote according to the popular vote. If states chose to use your system, the Electoral College would still be the means by which the results were transmitted to the federal government barring a significant abrogation of states' rights through a constitutional amendment.

Re:Another way of tallying

[gumbi west]

Iowa has a good system that reduces Gerrymandering... here is one explanation of it scroll down...

Re:I don't mind being the first....

[JabberWokky]

There are also questions of what class of people can vote. Since nobody is allowed to vote for President (other than the several hundred members of the electoral college), each state has different rule on what constitutes a voter.

Technically, a state can pick a president by dart, theocratic selection or popular vote, the last being most popular with (IIRC) 38 states choosing to formally decide that whoever wins the popular vote gets the electoral vote... but...

*Who* votes? In some states felons are excluded. In others, you have different residency requirements (live between two states correctly, and you get two votes - or none at all). In yet others, there is an attempt to allow non-citizens to vote (since they live here... call them illegal immigrants and you're racist: they are "undocumented citizens").

Everything right now is done at the state level, and each state has a different definition of who can vote. How do you reconcile? You're going to be taking away votes from some people and giving votes to other people who were decided to not to be allowed to vote.

--
Evan

Re: Pointless system

[some guy I know]

your system is absolutely pointless

I just finished hammering out a quick analyzation of Trillian_1138's news submission and thought that Slashdot might find it interesting. Specifically:

• it's "analysis", not "analization",
• "instead" is one word, not two, and
• "if every state had assigned their electoral votes" should be either "if every state had assigned its electoral votes" or "if all of the states had assigned their electoral votes".

Now, I realize that everyone makes the occasional typographic error (except for myslef, of course), but such blatant/ignorant misuse of the English language makes suspect the point(s) that he/she was trying to make.