2000 Election with Proportional Electoral Votes

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2000 Election with Proportional Electoral Votes

Posted by michael on Saturday October 2, 2004 @06:52AM from the hypothetically-speaking dept.

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..."

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I don't mind being the first.... by menscher · 2004-10-02 06:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

...to point out that your system is absolutely pointless. It has all the disadvantages of a popular vote (giving high chance to the winner being under 50%) while simultaneously having the disadvantages of the electoral college (unequal weighting of votes for people in different states).
Why must every random idea hit slashdot, regardless of merit?
Here's another (actually better) idea: raffle voting. Everyone puts names in a hat. One name is pulled out. It's the *only* method that makes every vote count.
1. Re:I don't mind being the first.... by WhiteBandit · 2004-10-02 06:58 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  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.
2. Re:I don't mind being the first.... by Trillian_1138 · 2004-10-02 07:16 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  My goal was to satisfy my own "what-if" question. From reading Slashdot, I don't think I was the only reader who was curious about having a nation-wide proportional assignment of electoral votes and, while this was not an exhaustive look at doing that, it at least answered my first question of who would have won had their been a straight proportional assignment of electoral votes. But again, as you said, it *does* have the disadvantages of the popular vote AND the electoral college.
  
  I just wanted to see what would happen...I'm sorry you didn't find the results interesting.
  
  -Trillian
3. Re:I don't mind being the first.... by PeteyG · 2004-10-02 07:31 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  ...while simultaneously having the disadvantages of the electoral college (unequal weighting of votes for people in different states).
  
  That's one of the advantages of the electoral college, actually. The fact that people in Alaska (like me) or Wyoming have a voting power that is disproportionatly large compared to that of a Californian or a New Yorker means that presidential candidates can't get away with just pandering to a few urban centers on the East and West coasts, and ignore everything else.
  
  --
  no thanks
4. Re:I don't mind being the first.... by ratsnapple+tea · 2004-10-02 07:51 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  But then, if this system had been in place for the 2000 elections, people's voting patterns would have changed. People in NYC, for example, would have turned out in much larger numbers due to the fact that "suddenly" their vote seems to matter a lot more, and Nader voters (presumably) would have been more inclined to pick one of the two major parties' candidates. Same in Texas, or anywhere else where people feel their electoral college votes are predetermined.
  
  People, being people, will vote strategically--that's just a fact of life. You can't take voting patterns from one system and infer that people would vote the same way under a different (more equitable?) system.
  
  Your analysis is interesting, for sure, and I for one enjoyed it. But I'm just not convinced you can read all that much into it.
5. Re:I don't mind being the first.... by PeteyG · 2004-10-02 08:46 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  One of the grievances that we had with the British, back in the day, was that we weren't getting representation in the British government even though Americans were paying British taxes. An injustice! Even though Britain offered to give America representation, that representation would have only had a very tiny amount of power relative to the rest of Britain.
  
  That's another reason that Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, Rhode Island, and many other states have more electoral and House representation than their population relative to the larger states would suggest. If those states were held completely hostage to the will of California and New York, they would leave the Union.
  
  There is more to a state than just raw population numbers. States like Alaska have natural resources, very strategic location, and a lot of other cool things. Things that the United States need. If the people of those states do not have any hope of popular representation, what is keeping them in the Union?
  
  If popular representation is the end-all be-all of democracy, why do you think that we have a Senate with two senators from each state?
  
  And finally... who the fuck would trust City People to run this country? That's what would happen with straight representative votes. Presidential candidates wouldn't have to worry AT ALL about the issues of farmers, Alaskans, hunters, people who fish for a living, gun owners, miners, military communities, or anything else that takes place outside a major urban area.
  
  City People don't know what it's like to live in the real world.
  
  --
  no thanks
6. Re:I don't mind being the first.... by lindsayt · 2004-10-02 10:10 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Wow, I set out to write a quick response, but it became quite long...
  
  Right, that's the biggest thing that strikes me as stupid about this proposal. I've often thought that getting rid of "winner take all" and going back to proportional selection of electors makes sense. However, One elector casts one vote, which means that it's no more granular than the integer number of electors.
  
  Obviously, at the point that the electoral vote is divided into pieces smaller than the integer number of electors, the whole point of the college is moot - there's no reason for them to meet, since at that point it's a straight popular vote, simply converted into a smaller base number than the number of voters.
  
  It's important to remember why winner-take-all crept in in the first place. In the beginning, there were two important things about the electoral college: first, it was up to state legislators to decide how the electors were chosen, which meant in some instances they were elected and in others they were appointed. Second, they were sent to Washington to choose a president, and they had no requirement to vote according to the wishes of their home state. Both of these is technically still true; but since all states today choose the electors by popular vote and then let the parties choose the electors for their candidate, as a general rule they vote for the candidate they're supposed to vote for.
  
  The winner-take-all system started because it allowed a few states with a lot of electors but a very divided population to have greater sway within the College and hence more attention from candidates. For instance, New York has a very large number of electors; but if their electors are split two ways, roughly resembling the overall split in the nation, then New York's massive number of electors is not going to particularly help or hurt either candidate. If a candidate knows that he can secure roughly half of New York's electors, it's not worth wasting any time there because one elector is unlikely to make a difference.
  
  So when bigger states started switching to winner-take-all, suddenly the difference between a 45-55 decision and a 55-45 decision in New York, which might have made a difference of 5 or six electors before, was worth 40 electors. Guaranteeing a win in New York became very important for a potential candidate, and New York became disproportionately important. In order to compete for attention, more states followed and eventually the entire nation (except a few now-insignificant states) switched to winner-take-all.
  
  Only politically-idealistic or unaware people would call for individual states (let alone their own state) to switch back to proportional selection of electors; but the winner-take-all system is fundamentally flawed. I think that a national election law (or possibly an amendment) requiring that states distribute electors propotionally is the only way to get out of the winner-take-all dilemma.
  
  Unfortunately, that brings about problems of its own. The usefulness of the Electoral College is that it's a one-time-use safety fuse on the American Presidency. It means that if an extremely dangerous figure won an election, the electors could decide to give the election to somebody else. This would of course end the electoral college, hence the reason it's a one-time-use mechanism in the contemporary period. But the reason that they can do this at all is because currently they are not legally bound in any way whatsoever, at least at the national level. Any attempt to require electors to be selected proportionally would also necessitate that their votes be attached to a given candidate and their loyalty assured. At this point, an electoral college would actually be meaningless, because the only thing that makes it interesting is that it prevents direct election of a president. Once electoral votes become irrevocably tied to the popular vote, the electoral system becomes meaningless.
  
  --
  I did not design this game/I did not name the stakes/I just happen to like apples/And I am not afraid of snakes-AniD
7. Re:I don't mind being the first.... by pudge · 2004-10-02 10:25 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  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.
  
  It comes close enough, since the House picks the winner from the top three candidates if none get 270, and the House is (and was) dominated by the GOP.
8. Re:I don't mind being the first.... by JabberWokky · 2004-10-02 11:12 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  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
  
  --
  "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
9. Re:I don't mind being the first.... by coaxial · 2004-10-02 16:53 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  That's another reason that Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, Rhode Island, and many other states have more electoral and House representation than their population relative to the larger states would suggest. If those states were held completely hostage to the will of California and New York, they would leave the Union.
  
  That's just dumb. You don't see Southern Illinois trying to secede from Chicago. You don't see upstate New York seceding from NYC.
  
  When the electoral college was created in 1789, the ratio from the most populous state (Virginia) to the least populous (Delaware) was 11 to 1. Today, it's 68 to 1 (California and Wyoming). While, I haven't done no research, I think it would be interesting to see how this imbalance was affected with the 1911 law limiting the House to 435 representitives, and the admission of the western states.
  
  Under the current situation, we don't have a tyrany of the majority, but rather a tyrany of the minority. Sparsely populated states generate little revenue, but receive large subsidies. Politcal decisions that are backed by a majority of the public are effectively vetoed by a hermit in a mountain shack. The small states like this. The conservatives like this. It gives them a disproportional amount of power.
  
  There is more to a state than just raw population numbers. States like Alaska have natural resources, very strategic location, and a lot of other cool things.
  
  COOL! Ha! *knee slap* In all honesty, we all love Alaska's giant mosquitos. :)
  
  In all seriousness, you have a point that Alaska contributes to the great tapestry of the United States, but is it fair for an Alaskan voter to be worth 3 times as much as a New York voter? ((NYpop / NYev) / (AKpop / AKev)) New York, has more people, generates more revenue, and has more of a cultural impact than most states. Most telling of all, urban states states provide much more money to the federal treasury, than they receive.
  
  And finally... who the fuck would trust City People to run this country?
  
  Because, that's where most of the people live?
  
  [What] about the issues of farmers, Alaskans, hunters, people who fish for a living, gun owners, miners, military communities, or anything else that takes place outside a major urban area.
  
  Quite frankly these issues don't mean anything to the majority of the people. You listen to the majority in a democracy. Shocking, I know; but that's the way it does, and should, work.
  
  Being from rural Southern Illinois, I know something about the urban-rural dynamic. Being from Alaska, you really don't. Juneau and Anchorage, simply aren't that big.
  
  Thos issues aren't really that much of a problem, since governemnts tend to maximize revenue, whether it's in the form of taxes from assorted industries, or from federal government subsidizes. Illinois has the third largest city in the nation, yet it throws a fit everytime there's talk about cutting farm subsidies. Why? Agriculture is a large industry in the state.
  
  What is a problem is allocation of state resources. For instance, Chicago REALLY doesn't want education funding to be allocated from a combined pool with each pupil receiving a equal ammount. Instead, they want the current system where education is funded directly though property taxes. This creates a system where the affluent suburban and urban neighborhood schools have multiple astroturfed football fields, million dollar chem labs, and everything their heart desires. The rural and innercity schools are lucky if their schools don't leak. (My high school didn't even have air conditioning.) That's where the issues lie.
  
  Conversely, Why would we want someone who lives in a hut in the middle of Alaska running the country? They have no idea about the issues facing the majority of the nation.
  
  What the hell do I know about the plight of innercities, suburban sprall, and traffic congestion? Nothing really.
  
  City
Should be "quick analysis". by Futurepower(R) · 2004-10-02 07:09 · Score: 2, Informative

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 by N3WBI3 · 2004-10-02 07:15 · Score: 2, Informative

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..

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An electoral college tie is possible by stienman · 2004-10-02 07:32 · Score: 2, Interesting

Actually, as reported yesterday on WUOM (Stateside - audio archive) yesterday it is possible to have a tie in the electoral college. There are two states that do not vote as a block - one allocates two votes to the state leader, and three votes to three congressional districts. The other is similar with only two congressional districts.

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?)

In the last election it would have taken only two specific states changing places to cause a tie.

-Adam
Ties? by cbr2702 · 2004-10-02 07:44 · Score: 3, Informative

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.

--

This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
Re:Another way of tallying by Zachary+Kessin · 2004-10-02 07:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

Before the civil war a few states picked their electors by a vote of the state legislator. By the 1860's this had mostly died out, but I'm not sure of exactly when or how this went away.

I must say I live in a country with a proportinal system (Israel) and I have to say it sucks rather badly. The parties are all corupt as all hell. It creates a very different dynamic, but not better.

--
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Re:Another way of tallying by N3WBI3 · 2004-10-02 08:01 · Score: 4, Interesting

I haven't done the analysis as to how the changes I proposed would effect past elections
Here is 2000
Gore Congressional Districts: 207
Gore States: 19 (x2) -> : 38
Gore Total: 245

Bush Congressional Districts: 228
Bush States: 31 (x2) -> : 62
Bush Total: 290

This give the same win but even a larger electoral margin for Bush than his 271 - 266 Result. The two lost electoal votes are from distcits that were too close to call (1 in Fl, and 1 in Tenn).

source: District Map

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Re:Another way of tallying by tunesmith · 2004-10-02 08:05 · Score: 3, Interesting

It would be a really bad idea, solely because the House of Reps is incredibly gerrymandered in the GOP's favor, which means the congressional districts are as well. The House is supposed to reflect the population. In 2000, the popular vote went to Gore. But Bush won the congressional districts 239-196. Bush would have won 2000 by a landslide.

Colorado's system isn't by congressional district, it's proportional, except it doesn't allow fractional EVs. Overall it's also a bad idea for states to adopt this approach just because of the mathematics of it. If one large state adopts the same scheme, then third party candidates get EVs easily, which means it would be much more likely for no one to reach 270 votes, which means the elections would much more likely go to the House of Reps, which, again, is gerrymandered by the Republicans...

Gerrymandering is a huge problem.

--
skkkoooonnnggggkkk ptui
I've been doing a similar thing.... by hobo2k · 2004-10-02 08:46 · Score: 3, Informative

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 by C10H14N2 · 2004-10-02 09:04 · Score: 2, Informative

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 by gumbi+west · 2004-10-02 09:49 · Score: 3, Informative

Iowa has a good system that reduces Gerrymandering... here is one explanation of it scroll down...
Re: Pointless system by some+guy+I+know · 2004-10-02 21:36 · Score: 2, Informative
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.
--
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Yes, but change the rules, and the players change by stomv · 2004-10-03 07:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

... tactics.

If EVs were allocated as the study imagines, then Gore and Bush would have behaved very differently in 2000. They'd have spent much less time working hard for a few more votes in the suburbs of New Mexico, Florida, Missouri, Iowa, Tennessee, and Oregon.

In the old system, had Gore bagged 1000 more votes in Florida, he'd have swung the election by 50 evs (FL had 25 in 2000, and Gore's gain would have been Bush's loss). Under your study, an extra 1000 votes for Gore meant squat.

So... Gore acted appropriately, fighting for those 1000 votes. With proportional evs, he'd surely have acted differently.

Not only would the players (Gore and Bush) acted differently, but voters surely would have acted differently as well. To simply change the allocation of evs while ignoring the fact that the actions of all players in the game would have been different under different rules is entertaining, but not enlightening.

Cool data -- but not useful for analysis. To make the claim that "Bush would have won anyway" is simply preposterous -- and about 50% likely to be correct.

--too late for mod points :( --

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