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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..."
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
...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