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Electoral College Abolition Amendment and IRV Bill
scoobrs writes "Two bills, H.J.R. 109 and H.R. 5293, were introduced in the US House by Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL). The first is a constitutional amendment abolishing the electoral college. The latter is a bill providing for instant runoff voting in all federal elections by 2008."
it's times like this I wonder how statisticians and sociologists elect heads of their professional organizations....
I'll be sure to write my Congressman to vote against both!
Canthros
Why must it be *IRV*? Why can't it be condorcet or something a little less flakey than IRV?
I don't know why modern political-reformists are so fixated on IRV. Of all the technical criteria of "fair voting" IRV fulfills NONE. In this respect it's worse even than "majority vote".
I mean, why would you want to go with a voting scheme, that makes possible situation that adding votes for a candidate causes him to lose, and converselly, removing votes for a candidate causes him to win?
Why not go directly with "aproval" or even "condorcet"?
Robert
PS Go, read the above link to find out what's exactly wrong with IRV.
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
They'll be doing that no matter what you write.
People have a hard time with something as simple as a butterfly ballot, and now you want them to rank their choices?
Wow, talk about being optimistic about the voting public.
Even if IRV is the most "accurate", I think Approval voting is lot simpler to understand, especially since it is used in many of the local elections (school board, etc), so it is familiar to most voters.
- Tony
Abolishing the Electoral College in favor of a straight popular vote is a bad thing because it eliminates the representation from small populations. The Founding Fathers were not stupid. They devised a solution to a problem that still exists today: Ensuring that large populations do not dicate law to smaller populations.
What I WOULD recommend is working on a better way to handle multi-party elections such as runoffs, etc.
In addition, Congress should instead be working harder to develop better solutions to validate voters, better solutions to develop more secure, reliable voting methods, and to develop legislation that eliminates the current loopholes in campaign funding laws.
Remember that the United States is NOT a Democracy, but a Federal Republic. To change that is to change the fundamental foundations of this country.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
IRV can eliminate the compromise candidate who's the second choice on everyone's ballots. IRV eliminates the compromises, then the extremists leaving us with an extremist winner.
Condorcet (sp?) is practically a drop in replacement for IRV. People vote exactly the same as in IRV, but the result is more fair and favorable under a variety circumstances. They just have to decide the exact algorithm with Condorcet, since there's more than one, some slightly better than others.
"The Electoral College is so 18th century," read a protester's T-shirt slogan before the Republican National Convention. Since the 2000 election dispute, serious people have sounded the same theme, including New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who after Al Gore's defeat called for direct popular election of the President. But since America has survived as a democratic republic for more than two centuries, we're inclined to think the Founders got it right.
The rap against the Electoral College is that it's undemocratic. As one recent newspaper editorial complained, "The majority does not rule." Strictly speaking, that's not true. The Constitution requires a majority of electors to choose a President; otherwise, the House decides, which hasn't happened since 1824. True, the popular majority doesn't rule, but only one Presidential candidate--Samuel Tilden, in the disputed election of 1876--has ever lost while exceeding 50% of the popular vote.
Under direct popular election, the majority often would not rule either. In six postwar elections--1948, 1960, 1968, 1992, 1996 and 2000--no candidate had a popular majority. If it's an outrage against majority rule that President Bush was elected while receiving only 47.9% of the popular vote, would it be that much less so if Mr. Gore had won with 48.4%? And what about Bill Clinton, who mustered a mere 43% of the popular vote in 1992?
This points to one of the Electoral College's great virtues: Under normal circumstances, it strengthens the Presidency by transforming a popular plurality into a majority, or a majority into a bigger majority. Mr. Clinton's 370-168 electoral victory over George H.W. Bush in 1992 put to rest any doubt about the new President's legitimacy. In every election since 1828, when popular balloting for Presidential electors became the rule almost everywhere, the winner's proportion of electoral votes has been higher than his share of the popular vote. Only three times--in 1876, 1888 and 2000--have the popular and electoral votes diverged.
Direct popular election would also vastly increase the risk of corruption and electoral disputes. With every vote competing directly against every other vote, dishonest politicians everywhere would have an incentive to engage in fraud on behalf of their parties. And a close race would make the 2000 Florida brouhaha look like a kerfuffle. Every one of the nation's 3,066 counties could expect to be overrun by lawyers demanding recounts.
Similar objections apply to a mischievous measure that will appear on Colorado's ballot this November. It would divide the state's nine electoral votes according to each candidate's proportion of the popular vote, so that if, as expected, Mr. Bush carries the Centennial State, John Kerry would still pick up three or four votes.
Supporters argue this is a more democratic way of doing things. But if this system had been in effect nationwide in 2000, Mr. Gore would have edged out Mr. Bush, 269-263, with Ralph Nader picking up six electoral votes, all in large states. This would have thrown the election to the House, where Mr. Bush presumably would have won--unless Mr. Gore managed to manufacture a plurality in Florida, which would have swung one electoral vote and increased his total to 270, a bare majority.
But Mr. Bush could have waged his own challenges to the vote in places like New Mexico, where he was 366 votes short of a plurality, and Hawaii, where an extra 137 votes would have given him an additional elector under the proposed Colorado system. Columnist George Will has calculated that nationwide proportional allocation of electors would have thrown the elections of 1948, 1968 and 1992 to the House.
The Colorado initiative is a transparently partisan effort to give Mr. Kerry a few additional electoral votes, and Coloradans, even those who support the Democrat, would be foolish to back a measure that would diminish their state's influence by taking most of its electoral votes out of play.
The effort to institute direct pop
Condorcet is better than IRV but in the short-term (~3 major candidates) it's almost the same. Besides, Condorcet is a drop-in replacement for IRV and if we can implement IRV, condorcet would be extremely easy to put in place.
Since most people don't know about condorcet, try this link which compares Condorcet to IRV mathematically and by way of a simple example.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Democrats think the Electoral College cost them the presidency. We better change the constitution. Republicans think they have a potential president in a popular Austrian. We better change the constitution. 3rd parties want more votes. Better go PR, IRV, or some other method that lets people vote without "throw away" syndrome. I'm a Libertarian, and I say "Just say no" to these knee-jerk reactions. I feel the same about redistricting. We shouldn't allow ANYONE to attempt to engineer favorable outcomes. They never turn out the way we expect any way. And I say better the devil you know. As soon as we Libertarians stop running marginal candidates, more voters will be convinced to vote for us without throwing away their votes. Despite our crappy ballot access laws, we manage to do alright. When we lose, it's our fault. Let's stop blaming a system that is not half-bad and stop trying to engineer new structural outcomes. It always seems to make the mess bigger.
Better than eliminating the electoral college would be to require each state to allocate its electors proportionately instead of winner-take-all for the state.
That would completely eliminate the concept of a "battleground state" as it exists now, and "florida" situations in the future - there would never be a situation where a small increase in real votes could net you 21 electoral votes in one shot. Any recounts would be, at most, fighting over one electoral vote at a time instead of a whole state's worth, because the margin of error is never so large that it would cover more than that proportion of the state's voters.
I think this would probably have to be federally or constitutionally mandated, because individual states that apply it to only themselves instantly *dis*advantage themselves: where they might previously have gotten lots of attention from the candidates because 20+ electoral votes were up for grabs, the candidates would now concentrate on the states that *hadn't* implemented the change.
I really get the feeling this wasn't thought through well?
SECTION 2. The persons having the greatest number of votes for President and Vice President shall be elected, so long as such persons have a majority of the votes cast.
That's it. No provisions for how a runoff will be conducted or even IF one will be conducted. Speaking as a software designer, where's the error handling? Oh! In an unrelated piece of code that may not get implemented! Whoo!
This bill is a publicity stunt... considering it has to be approved by the very states that it strips power from, even its sponsors know it has no chance of being created.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
I wouldn't mind the electoral system, if there was also a REQUIREMENT to vote and maintain your citizen ship.
I'd rather see the entire populous vote for a gibbering idiot than see less than a quarter of it vote for the same idiot.
~Donald
~Donald / Just RTFM
IRV would really help third parties because it would get rid of the "I don't want to waste my vote by voting for someone who can't win." It would then allow the major parties to be mch more responsive to the public's desires. If (for example) The Democrats won a senate seat and the winner knew that 70% of his votes were first choice, 24% were second choice Green, and 6% were second choice Libertarian, he'd know that to shore up more votes, he'd better tack hard in a green direction. Once people saw how it worked, more and more who supported 3rd party ideals would vote for them and quite possibly elect them.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
This system is an improvement, but each elected position should also offer the choice of "None of the Above."
I should not have to choose the lessor of two evils.
Right now they are worth 9 votes (I believe its 8 or 9)
If Colorado goes for a percentage based system for assigning their electorial votes Colorado will cease to exist on the radars of political parties when it comes to Presidential elections. With 8 or 9 votes margin it is useful, when its just a 1 or 2 vote difference which is the result you have on using percentages its useless.
This type of change dilutes the power of any state which follows it. Can you imagine the hoopla that would come about should a big state that normally leans to the left contemplated it? I guarantee if CA or NY wanted to go this route there would be claims of racism and disenfranchisement.
The electorial college prevents major population centers from governing the whole country. It gives a say to smaller states. It does a good job of preventing a tryranny of the majority. Which is a good thing considering that more and more people think they deserve everything for nothing. If anything ruins the US it will be when a majority gets in power that wants to give itself every imaginable benefit. (we already have social security - (Retirement) - health care will just break the bank)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
There's a problem with abolishing the electoral college. The problem is that there is *a lot* of vote fraud in this country.
Stay with me.
The electoral college acts as a buffer against vote fraud in specific places. If you run up the vote, in, say, Chicago, or NYC, you'll only affect the outcome of the election in Illinois and NY, respectively. Without the electoral college, you can win the whole country by running up the vote in just a few places. Eliminating the electoral college would make vote fraud determine the outcome of our elections.
Long term, I am for abolishing the electoral college. But we need to tackle vote fraud *first*. There needs to be a huge crackdown, and we need better security methods to keep this from happening. Once we have that, then we can talk about abolishing the electoral college.
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
Support more choices in government -- vote in the primary. The general election is the runoff. The primary is the true multi-party election, with multi-person debates and a low threshold for participation. If you just started paying attention now and want to vote for someone other than the two finalists, you're several months too late.
Instead of having multiple parties choosing sides to form a majority after a general election, we have the multiple factions choosing one of two sides before a primary election. Our two parties are not political parties in a true sense, they are political coalitions. Our third-parties are just factions who refused to choose sides, and thus did not participate in the primary debates and elections.
Send the multi-party voting method debate to new democracies that has not yet converged to the two-party equilibrium, like Afghanistan and Iraq.
we should do them we would not be in this mess. The Constitution says we vote not for the president but for people who we want to vote for the president, each district gets 3 votes. They are to be wise people that meet in December to discuss the issues and then they vote. I say the Constitution party has it right when they say it here I still might not know who I am voting for this year (Peroutka or Bush) but I am Damn sure that Nov 3rd I will be sending in a change of party form, I do really like the Constitution party
"Preemptive" military action and tax cuts for millionaires when there's already a huge budget deficit break the bank to support ideals a whole lot less important than people's health. If anything ruins the US it will be poor idiots in the red states voting for people who act against their interests to help rich elitists save some money, because they refuse to join the reality-based community that neocons hate so much.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
I'm all for the protection of the rights of the minority, but that isn't the same as letting the minority have a bigger say in how the country is run than the majority. And that is the current situation: rural voters have a disproportionally large say in how the country is run. There are fewer rural voters, yet they have (approximately) the same amount of pull as urban voters.
What would happen if 95% of all Americans lived in cities? Would the 5% of rural voters still get 50% of the representation? That would mean rural voters have 20 times the influence as urban voters. 20 times! Those are going to be some hefty argriculture subsidies!
I am left wondering why geographical boundries should determine representation. Why should 5% of the population have the same amount of say as 95% of the population? We don't have representatives based on race or religion, right? About 13% of Americans are black, yet they don't have an equal share of representation as white people. On the logic that minority groups should have equal representation, they should get their representation boosted, right?
The question I am trying to expose (and to which I don't have an answer) is: what constitutes a minority group that should get equal representation in our legislature? It seems to me that determining a minority on the basis of population density and geography is a pretty arbitrary metric. What makes rural America as a minority group so special as to warrant higher legislative representation (or voting clout)? Why not blacks, too? Or latinos? Or Jews? Or amputees? Or homosexuals?
It seems to me that the current system is disproportionately assigning representation based on somewhat arbitrary standards. What is a better standard? I'm not sure. But I'd be open to suggestions. Or critiques of my logic. :)
Taft
Though I agree there are better things than IRV (approval voting is my favorite), IRV is better than what we have now. It allows 3rd parties to be get almost 1/3 of the vote before it screws up and reverts to the equivalent of popular vote, so at least there is a measure of what support those 3rd parties have.
Even if the amendment to abolish the electoral college passes in the legislature, I'd be shocked if enough states ratified it. The electoral college guarantees that small states have a disproportionately large effect on the outcome of the presidential race. There are 17 states (plus DC) with five or less electoral votes. Abolishing the EC would reduce their influence on the Presidential outcome by approximately half. You can probably count on all of those 17 states declining to ratify this amendment. Seven more states have seven or less EC votes, and will be only slightly more favorable to this idea.
:-)
An amendment needs 34 (or is it 33?) states for ratification. You do the math.
It'll never get that far, though. Most of those small states are "red", and I seriously doubt a Republican Congress will dilute their influence.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
The only advantage to IRV at all is that at an intuitive surface level it seems like a good idea. All of the real analysis of it that I have seen have shown that it is the only alternative voting system that is just as bad if not worse than plurality. If we instituted IRV, at best it would end up in a situation like Australia, where third parties are still weak enough to not make a difference. But at worst - if a third party candidate was nearly as popular as the two major party candidates, then the outcome of the election would be completely irradic. Not random, more like a chaotic pendulum, where the order in which minor candidate drop out has more effect on the outcome of the election than the overal popularity of the (three) major candidates. It really is a horrible election system.
I absolutely agree with your endorsement of Approval voting. It is simple and a definate improvement over plurality voting. Even more importantly the intuitively apparent advantages and disadvantages are the same as the real mathmatical advantages and disadvatages. This means that the average voter can understand it, unlike condocert, and their intuitive notions of why it is fair will be correct, unlike IRV. The only argument against it is that it is not a big enough improvement, but moving in small steps is not a bad thing.
Well, there's a problem. If we had stuck with that method to begin with, or only recently diverged from it, sure it'd be viable. But if you look at the political climate in the country today...most people are already certain that they'll vote for a particular candidate. What will happen is republicans will vote for someone who they are certain will vote within the party, democrats will do the same. Due to this, the results of the system are similar to the electoral system. The good thing about it is that it'll be district by district instead of an entire state, which is IMO a big improvement over the current electoral system.
Your brain is not a computer.
Un-original political stunt -- move along please, there's nothing to see here.
The current system has served the country well for 230 years - although there may be room for improvement, there's certainly no reason to change it radically.
I'd hope those that put JJ Jr in Congress are duly embarassed, and won't make that mistake again.
My affinity for hyperbole knows no bounds
Well if the people have to be local, maybe that could change things a bit more. who are you more likely to vote for, your neighborer who even though a different party you know and like and trust, or some unknown person in the same party.
That the problem with the current system, tell me something about either candidate that they have not said them selfs for their opponent has said, or enemy's have said. Politics are just way to impersonal, we might as well vote for Bender for all it worth! All see is what they people want us to see, we don't know them. Do they even have hopes and dreams, but if we voted for electors that are local (congressional districts) then we might know something about them, the could be friends, family, some one in the community we look up to, or conversely some one we don't think can do the job because we know from personal experience from them.
Lets bring government back home to the local community.
You've just gotten rid of my "Freedom Fries" complaint. Of course I still 'would like French Fries with that,' but I'm trying to anticipate a middle-America response.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
OK let me break this down for you....
Senate - each state gets two Senators, Senators are the STATE's representative's, not the people of the states - that's the house. So, each state gets an equal 2% respresentation of the entire Senate.
House - OK, now the House does represent the people broken up into little districts. But how on god's green earth can you say that the House gives larger representation to smaller populations? I live in Delaware, we have one Representative. That means 1 vote out of 435 in the House. California on the other hand has 56 Representatives. If it were just between us two states, California would win every time. And furthermore, Resprentatives are awarded per population (I don't have the numbers offhand, but it's somewhere around a million citizens per Representative). So as populations change, so does representation.
President - Are you kidding me? Like an earlier post said, the founding fathers were not stupid. The electoral college is in place to even things out. My home state of Delaware has a population of slightly over a million people. We're small. Don't blink or you'll miss us. The point is, the electoral college ensures that the President is elected by the States - as in President of the United STATES (not President of the Popular Vote). If the Prez was elected by the popular vote, then the Candidates would be in California, Texas, and New York for the duration of the campaign and would never set foot in Delaware, Rhode Island, Wyoming, Vermont, et al. However, as it stands, because of the electoral college, both Bush and Kerry have made multiple stops to this little tiny dot on the map called Delaware. We only have slightly over a million people, but the STATE has 3 electoral votes so while the candidates spend most of their time in the states with the huge populations, tiny states like ours don't get a lot of attention, but the electoral college makes sure we're not forgotten.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
No, splitting electoral college votes wouldn't eliminate battleground states, it would just move them around. Unfortunately, to my detriment, because where else but Vermont can you get 3 electoral votes with barely over 1/2 million people? I was just in Ohio last week, and the TV commercials were a pain in the (body part). I don't really want that in MY state.
Putting it that way, I don't really think the *people* in any state want it to be a battleground, for that very reason. There is some enjoyment of status, but overall it's a pain. Is it really worth months of blitzkreig advertising for one glimpse of the candidate?
By the way, this is also a States Rights issue. The Constitution leaves it up to the States to run their elections, as they see fit. That's the other reason for the Electoral College - it's really the States choosing the President. There really is no such thing as a National Election - it just looks that way because all of the states happen to choose their Electors by popular vote, and the Electors almost always follow that vote.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Better be careful...
Yesterday I used the term 'neocon' and was told that that destroyed all of my credibility, and made me a buy-in with "The Conspiracy." I was also told that NPR and the BBC, which I cited as my major news sources, are "left wing arms of the government," and that I should choose a more centrist news source, like Fox News.
I kid you not, but it was anonymous coward who told me so.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
An example of a situation where country people might not be able to be protected:
Take some hypothetical state where everyone is elected by popular vote. Now imagine this state has a large city (say, 80% of the total). Now imagine there is a small region just outside of the city, with no more than 1000 people.
Now, whenever there is an issue that affects the city people, you better believe that those that were elected by those 80% are going to care about it if they want to be re-elected. But what if it affects small-towns everywhere? Since all the votes come from the city, they're not going to care what happens to the towns.
So, you take an issue that is good for cities but bad for towns (say, shipping garbage outside the city to a huge landfill in the small town).
Now say this issue is affecting the whole country, but everyone is elected by the popular vote. No one is going to care about this, because these small towns everywhere that are getting too much garbage have no say.
Now compare this to the current situation, where at least some of these small towns will have elected someone. This someone is their voice, that they can hold accountable to stand up for their needs in politics.
It's not the "country" folk that necessarily need protecting, either. There are often a need for certain elected positions to 'represent' certain minorities, whether it be a sparely populate state, or a group of people. It's far more easy, though, to count votes based on district rather than a particular race, religion, or most other minority group.
You know, in an odd sort of way, this reminds me of Intel and Microosft business practices. Both are under the Eye for monopoly practices, so both are "forbidden" from doing certain things, like per-CPU licensing. But both also have list prices that would render PC makers effectively/nearly unprofitable, and then give what are essentially loyalty-based kickbacks. The kickbacks restore profitability - if you are loyal.
Odd parallel, but not perfect. I have long felt that Congress bribes us with our own money.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I have a plan! We should use the voting procedure for a master server that Windows NT uses!
Its brilliant!
There are too many problems with computerized voting NOW. Why should I think that something as complex as IRV (or most of the other alternate voting methods out there, for that matter) would go without a hitch? Like Communism, it looks good on paper, but it probably will not work well in practice.
If Congress wants to play around with the voting methods, they should to it on an off-year. People are polar enough now that if the election went either way, and the cause was percieved to be the tweaking in the voting methods, then there would be riots in the streets. If people are willing to riot over something as stupid and (relatively) meaningless as a sports event, imagine how they would react to something like an election...
On the other hand, I don't see a big problem with shifting the EC to a proportional system, like Maine has already (and Colorado voters are deciding on this year). That's a matter that is best left up to the states, though.
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
In that case, it's hopeless.
The whole perceived point of improved voting systems is so that a vote for Nader is not a vote for Bush, a vote for Buchanon is not a vote for Gore, etc. These voting systems diminish the power of the two dominant parties, and allow minors to emerge.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Easy. The president represents the STATES. United States.
The State is supposed to represent and protect you.
If we go to some form of popular vote, that means the power of the states have actually been taken away, and given to the President, in the sense that the President only has to care about big cities: the SF Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, etc.
Right now he has to court the 'swing states', but with popular vote, he'd court 'swing cities'. It changes the balance of power. The Founding Fathers had a two tier system in mind: Federal power and State power, and over the past 200 years Federal power has been growing at the expense of State power, and by proxy personal power since a person has MUCH more pull in a local situation than a global situation.
GPL Deconstructed
What would happen if 95% of all Americans lived in cities?
That wouldn't change the presidential vote unless these cities were all in the same state (or a small number of states).
Congressional districts within states are broken up roughly in terms of the same population for each. I would assume that this would mean lots of geographically small districts and a few large ones.
Even in the extreme case you describe the system is nowhere near unbalanced as you make it out to be,
About 13% of Americans are black, yet they don't have an equal share of representation as white people.
This is only relevant if blacks are inherently different from whites. I don't believe that and I thought our politically correct overlords were trying to teach us all races are equal. I wouldn't vote based on race... I wouldn't even vote based on my religion (which describes me a whole lot more) because I'm Catholic and wouldn't vote for Kerry. Qualities like race, sex or geographic home, hair style, speaking style, or obnoxiousness of a candidate's spouse should not be relevant (I realize they often are). Qualities like political attitudes, philosophical stands, and history of public life (and to a large extent, personal life) should dictate how people will vote. I think the differences in racial politics are really largely based on differences in socioeconomic standing. I would expect middle-class blacks to vote similarly to middle-class whites, and the same for lower- and upper-class people. It just so happens a disproportionate number of blacks are lower in economic standing. If we help all poor people, the blacks will come into parity with other races, and their politics will probably follow suit. I don't see it as a black thing, but as a people thing. But then again I'm a pasty-white computer nerd who understands black culture about as well as I understand ancient Greek. Maybe I'm completely wrong. I just try to see people as people.
However, in answer to your question, if we somehow institutionalize race into our political system we will never rise above racism we are struggling to escape completely from today. It's bad enough as it is because treating people without regard to color isn't good enough any more.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I am quite puzzled about the reactions I read here.
I remember reading here that the vast majority of slashdotters think the current system for electing the president of the USA is bad. Some complains that voting third party is more or less a waste. Others complain that their home state is so democrat/republican that their vote for the other party won't count. Others complain about the winner take all present in most states.
Yet, when someone proposes a bill that tries to adress these problems, people here bitch that it is not perfect.
Althrough I am not American (or maybe because I am not), I think this is a step in the right direction.
First, about the abolishion of electoral college. I've read many comments complaining that it would lessen the power of small population states. I fail to see how it is a problem. Look at Europe. Most countries in Europe directly elect their president, without consideration about the region where one votes. Yet, you don't see in Europe the tyranny of the cities. Hell, even with this system, the agricultural people have a political clout much higher than their number would indicate. They are not oppressed by cities resident people.
A citizen is a citizen, and I fail to see why some should get more power in elections than others. Isn't the definition of a democracy (or a constitutional republic) that each citizen be equal ? Equality means same power in elections, me think.
Second, about IRV. Sure IRV is technically inferior to Condorcet. But Condorcet will not be a way for elections. The vast majority of people don't understand it. Even the short explanations some slashdotters proposed are not simple. If you don't believe me, try to explain Condorcet to some 85 years old grandma, or to someone that dropped school at 14 because they didn't catch maths. These people won't trust Condorcet, they find it too convulted. The fact that it is mathematically superior doesn't get in the line for these people.
OTOH, IRV can be understood by everyone. Sure it's buggy. But so is the current system. Remember, this is a proposed bill, and representatives will discuss it. That means that it may be corrected to allow more sane methods.
Remember people, we are discussing two bills ( *two* bills, even if you hate IRV, you can approve the dropping of electoral college), and will be amended and corrected multiple times before passing to final vote. It seems silly to me to oppose them.
Why not try to be positive, and write your representatives that the idea of the bills are good, and then proposing alternate voting methods ? If you just oppose them, don't complain latter when the only choice you get is a republicrat and a demoblican. Instead, support the senator that proposed the bills, and encourage their perfection.
America's presidential election is the worst of all presidential elections in first world. Multiple (and sometimes brain-dead) voting scheme, near-impossibility for third parties to get votes, people in democratic states who can't show their support for republicans, people in republican states who can't show their support for democrats, election determined by Florida and a few other key swing states, people having votes that count twice just because they live in a small state, etc...
That should be corrected, and even if these bills are not perfect (I don't like IRV either), they sure are a step in the right direction.
What about stopping bitching that the whole world is dumb and accepting that sometimes, to get a good system, you have to be patient and support a temporary solution if it is the right direction ? This is how the real world works, you know.
The obvious question to follow up with is "Which cities?" If 95% of all Americans live in Chicago, the West Coast cities, and the stretch from Boston to Washington, D.C., (call it 12 states) then they will be under-represented. Very badly in the Senate, where they would have 24 out of 100 senators, least badly in the House where they would have a large majority of the representatives but still not 95%, and somewhere in between in presidential elections.
Speaking as someone from a large western state with relatively few people, great scenic beauty, and rich in natural resources, let me say that replacing the current system with one that was based solely on population would be terrifying. I can easily envision the 95% who live in the 12 states (in this example) passing federal laws that do a variety of things: requiring that we strip-mine the resources; requiring that we operate massive land-fills in the non-scenic areas to dispose of waste from the urban states; requiring that we ban all development in scenic areas (even though the large majority of that 95% will never visit them); requiring energy-efficiency standards that make sense in an urban setting but are simply not practical in my state.
One of the key issues that the Founders wrestled with in writing the Constitution was how to make it difficult for a small group of states with large populations to impose their will on the other states. I would be happy to entertain systems other than the current one. Can you suggest one that guarantees my state's ability to have a meaningful say in governing the nation that doesn't give me "over representation" relative to our population?
I guess I was attacking the assumption that rural folk and city folk are so fundamentally different that we need to actively protect those groups from one another. I think there ARE differences between rural folk and city folk, but I would liken those differences to the differences between whites and blacks, jews and gentiles, etc. Everyone has a different background and that background forms their ideals and outlook on the world.
My point is that we have much more diversity today than we had when the constitution was written. I believe that today, the rural and urban ideologies are no farther apart than our racial, religious and ethnic differences. And since we give racial, religious and ethnic differences no regard when choosing a President, why should we give the differences between rural and urban folk any regard? Some might disagree with my assumptions, but maybe you can see where my assumptions lead me.
Taft
I still don't understand whats wrong with tax cuts for millionaires.
1. Millionaires don't bury their money in the back yead, they spend it or they invest it. (Even putting money in the bank is investing the bank invest your money for you)
2. When they spend money it end up generally in normal peoples pockets, so we want to encourage this.
3. When they put money in the bank, it is usually used to provide loans for small buisnesses or for you to buy a house. Sure you get stuck paying interest, but that money goes back into the bank is is used to loan money to other people and buy stuff with.
4. Millionaries geniunly don't live like scrudge mcduck and swim in their pools of money, and if they did I'd support taxing them highly.
Now in all honestly if the federal government really NEEDED to raise taxes, for efficiency, it makes sense to tax the rich who thus in turn tax the poor by raising prices and investing less. But I'm not convensed the federal government needs more money. We need to be doing everything we can to increase the efficency of our economy so more gets produced per person so more people can have more stuff. The federal government is HIGHLY inefficient.
For instance the LA area which gets water from the Colorado River has a larger population than Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Colorado, combined, which the river passes through to get to LA area. If it were simply a majority vote, I'm sure that those states would become LA's bitch when it comes to the use of the Colorado River.
To add something, I do support social programs that help people who are guinuenly dissadvantaged and can't help themselves. Simply because a health economy thives on people living comfortably and there is no reason to be unhumane to the people who need help. But the current system needs major overhauls and the federal government simply can't just throw money at the problem expecting people to be honest.
The problem is that no one in Washington really seems to care about debt, and they really do act like either the debt will never have to be repaid or it's someone else's problem.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
It's my current opinion that there is another solution than getting rid of the electoral college. Why don't we do what Maine and Nebraska do for electoral votes? Go by the winner of Congressional Districts and have the state winner take the two electoral votes? In addition, what about using IRV in this method (which isn't done there I believe)?
Actually, the electoral college system is more susceptible to such vote fraud. In the case of a borderline state, you only have to manipulate a few hundred votes to create a net change of twice the number of electoral votes for the whole state. How far would changing a few hundred votes get you in a nationwide popular election?
Its not that hard to balence the budget, it looked like we were going to have a balenced budget even with the tax cuts before the war. But you know "things happen", though I definatly agree we need to cut spending.
Though on the whole of it all excluding loans from other coutries, if you look at the country as a whole, you can't really say we are in debt, because if the government is made of a collection of its people, then how can the government be in debt to itself? Much of the debt is also from bonds which are more of an investment, I mean would someone say google is millions of dollars in debt because a lot of people bought their stocks, I wouldn't.
Introduce the bill AFTER Clinton wins two terms with less than 50% of the popular vote...
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
My position is that we should change the electoral college by changing exactly how we know how many votes each state gets. Personally, I think they should all be equal, every state gets 2 votes. Then each state can decide how those 2 votes get decided. Whether thats IRV or whatever.
Right now, Congress can pass an amendment, and to become part of the constitution it needs the ratification of 3/4 of the states. A Convention could also pass an amendment, but it would also need ratification by 3/4 of the states.
In other words, a Constitutional Convention would have no more power than Congress has right now. All it does is give you an alternate way to amend, without the involvement of the federal government...but it's no easier than the usual method.
Personally, I can see ways that this might be useful. It's probably the only way that we'll ever get back to the more decentralized structure we had in 1800.
Even if the ammendment passes the Legislature, it has to be ratified by 2/3 of the states before it becomes law. Because the Electoral college system gives a disproportionate advantage to smaller states, we'll probably never reach that threshold.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Maine and Nebraska both allocate all their votes (except the 2 for the senator) by congressional district, and those districts are themselves currently decided by the politicians.
Considering how bad the redistricting battles are already, I really don't want to see electoral votes added as an extra jackpot for gerrymandering well.
With the current system it has been proven (with Florida) that changing about 1000 votes can completely alter the election.
.5 vote, that is 6/540 of the us population or many millions.
If it was a straight popular vote, Gore would have won by 300,000 votes, so that many would have to be changed in order to alter the outcome.
If each state's electors were divided proportionally, Bush would have won by 12(?) electoral votes. This would require at least 12 different states to change some votes. The 12 nearest n+.5 would have to be located, and I would expect the average margin to be near the 1000 of Florida, so 12,000 votes would have to be changed.
If electors were divided fractionally and proportionally, then Bush would again win by approximately 12 electoral votes but in this case the 12 states with lowest population to elector would have to change by an average of
It seems pretty obvious that the current scheme is 12-1000 times easier to cheat than alternatives.
there are many small states that are not 'swing states', and nobody ever vists. try wyoming, kansas, oklahoma, montana, the dakotas, i mean, you hardly ever see the candidates there. because they know its a 'red' state, and therefore all locked up. its almost pointless to even vote democrat in oklahoma, because you know how many christians are gonna go republican, and have since LBJ. what about -our- votes counting?
the only reason prez and vp visit these non-swing small states is to push senate and house candidates.
Because I can write a better law than H.J.RES.109
http://bolson.org/voting/amendment.txt
Start Running Better Polls
Because I can write a better law than H.J.RES.109
http://bolson.org/voting/amendment.txt
Start Running Better Polls
If you like the CP you might want to check out the American Patriot Party http://www.patriotparty.us/ also. Similar approach to the CP without so much religion :)
That version of "Instant Runoff" voting is only a slight improvement on today's all-or-nothing votes. It works by eliminating the least popular candidate in each round, counting only the highest ordered vote by any voter from their candidate list, until someone has a majority, when they win. So a voter can safely vote for Nader, then Bush, without jeopardizing their Bush vote, or neutralizing in favor of Kerry when Nader doesn't win. That addresses only one problem, a symbolic one, with our system: voting to "send a message" is institutionalized, but the popular parties and their duopoly is unthreatened by the other candidates, even when they reach double-digit percentages.
The working version lets voters rank each of the candidates in order. The most popular, by consensus, wins. So, often the top picks don't win, because the electorate is split evenly apart from a small minority, which denies majority to any. But the number 2 choice is universal, or at least acceptable to a majority. Or one of the #1 picks also ranks higher in aggregate than the rest of the #1s, so they win the consensus. That kind of ranked voting not only models a consensus for selection, but better reflects the consensus of those to be governed. Lots of people will grumble that their #1 lost, that the winner wasn't anyone's first choice, but we're familiar with that kind of compromise in consensus in the rest of our adult lives.
--
make install -not war
People who say that tend to forget that there are tremendous population differences within the states.
I never hear anyone say, "We need to have an electoral college for the Texas gubernatorial election to keep Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio from deciding everything." If state elections can live with one-person-one-vote, why can't the presidential election?
The question really is, why should states be natural units of elections?
Logic, macros, and more
Right now he has to court the 'swing states', but with popular vote, he'd court 'swing cities'. It changes the balance of power.
Oh come on... For the most part, candidates only visit the major cities anyways, beacuse that's where the most people are, which makes it the most efficient use of their time and money.
Here in the Oregon the only city of decent size is Portland, whose total metro area population is about 1.5 million, which accounts for about half of the state's population. Candidates only visit Portland.
Joseph?
I am glad Discover decided to re-run this story again this year...
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
No, the Founding Fathers weren't stupid, but your response is a common myth. I recommend that article highly for its insight into why the arguments for the electoral college fail. They were making a concession so the southern slaveholding states would receive more votes and support the constitution. I assume you don't intend that we revive slavery, so that there's still a purpose for the electoral college? Since when do State's rights trump fair federal elections anyway?
-Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. -Ben Franklin
You say colorado will become irrelevant if they split their votes. But if you live in the vast majority of the country who aren't blessed/cursed as swing states, you are already irrelevant!
I live in Texas. There's no way in hell that this state will do anything besides give every last one of its votes to Bush. The politicans don't even bother coming here to campaign, let alone to listen to what our problems are. They can't make enough of a difference to capture the whole state, so why even bother.
I'd rather my vote be worth 1/280M than the 0 it's worth today, and I'm sure Republican folks in California et. al feel the same way.
Similarly, IRV isn't perfect and known academic breaks exist, but for all intents and purposes, people know that voting your conscience is still the safest way to make your candidate win in any large IRV election. After all, Australians have experience running IRV since the 20's and they know there's no perfect cheat vote.
Also, there would be several major benefits:
- The duopoly would become optional for once.
- Americans would become open to further voting reforms.
- Voting equipment would support optical scanners and exclude vendors like Diebold who can hardly certify their equipment for duopoly voting, let alone IRV.
- People would feel like their vote counted.
These rabid Condorcet advocates would rather see no progress at all in spite of all the hard work and direct lobbying it took for people to get this far in spite of real world opposition from the two parties. If you actually gave a damn, you'd push for an amendment to the bill, not spam slashdot to write armchair letters opposing our hard work.-Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. -Ben Franklin
I'll leave your knee-jerk reaction of free trade libertarianism alone since it's off-topic, but your criticism of the effort is open season. I wouldn't say this bill represents "the Democrats." The bills are sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus, the most oft-ignored group in the House. These are genuine attempts at reform by folks who are very cynical of the system and are not merely griping that Al Gore didn't get in. Why don't you RTFA before taking such a jaded view?
-Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. -Ben Franklin
With Approval Voting, it seems to violate the idea of one person, one vote. Same with Condorcet.
IRV is simply having multiple primaries with the weakest candidate being eliminated with vote transferring.
Here's my understanding. Let's say there are five candidates among seven voters. That's 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 10 voters per voter.
The most votes any one candidate could get are four, since you could bubble in four bubbles for a given candidate against the other four running.
So hypothetically, let's say there are Bush, Kerry, Badnarik, Cobb, and Nader. If a Kerry voter wanted to be sure no one else could beat Kerry, he or she could simply fill in the four Kerry bubbles and ignore the other six pairwises to prevent spoilage. Cause every point given to Nader for example, is one more point the voter's first choice (of Kerry) could lose.
It's in my opinion that IRV is the next logical step, since it's just multiple primaries. And it's not confusing either.
It's a real problem. I live in Maryland. It isn't as bad as it used to be because of population shifts, but for many years, Baltimore controlled the politics in Maryland. Whatever Baltimore wanted, Baltimore got, and fuck the rest of the state. Now Baltimore has to share some power with the Maryland counties that border Washington, D.C. Still, people who live in western Maryland, the eastern shore or other rural areas, are often ignored by the state legislature. I'm sure you can find similar situations in many other states.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It's a real problem. I live in Maryland. It isn't as bad as it used to be because of population shifts, but for many years, Baltimore controlled the politics in Maryland. Whatever Baltimore wanted, Baltimore got, and fuck the rest of the state. Now Baltimore has to share some power with the Maryland counties that border Washington, D.C. Still, people who live in western Maryland, the eastern shore or other rural areas, are often ignored by the state legislature. I'm sure you can find similar situations in many other states.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It's about 650,000 citizens per Representative (but the actual number depends on how many citizens your state has, as well as how many people the decennial census counts in the nation as a whole.)
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
So any benefit that IRV activists hope to get is based on their theory that "someday we will be big boys too!" (Great -- new boss, old boss, yada yada yada.)
If we are going to talk about "reforming" the voting system in America, let's skip IRV, Approval, etc. and go directly to Proportional Representation. PR gives a voice to everyone.
PR is kind of the reverse of "winner-take-all": the current system which tends to disenfranchise underrepresented views. Under PR, any party which receives more than X% [usually taken to be about 5%] of the vote in a given district is entitled to a representative from that district. Given that there are about 4 parties that might reach that threshold, this should lead to about 3 times as many representatives from every district, on the average. (I suspect that the location of the "center" is different in each district, but that the minor parties most 'opposite' the center will not quite be able to make the 5%. But I might be wrong.)
This will benefit everyone in several ways. First of all, more good ideas will surface in legislatures, precisely because there will be more points of view. Secondly, it will lead to a rise in voter participation, as voters realize that their vote really *does* count. Thirdly, multi-partisan coalitions will arise, leading to better legislation. (There is only *1* possible bipartisan coalition, while there are 1+4 + 6 +4 = 15 possible multipartisan coalitions [not 16: a coalition with no members is not a coalition, is it?]). (Passing *any* legislation will probably turn out to require at least a tripartisan coalition). And fourth, it will lead to *much* more interesting and meaningful political campaigns (as *all* sides of every issue are explored), which is what we all want! 8^D
[Sorry if that took longer than 30 seconds, but I believe that the American voter is more intelligent than you give them credit for, especially once they figure out what their self-interest *really* is.]
OK, /.ers -- tell me *why* PR is *not* a better solution than 'ranking' systems. (And I pre-call "bullshit!" on any assertion that argues that it is 'more complicated' than a ranking system. Under PR, people still only get one vote: it's the aggregate vote that matters.)
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
First, I like the fact that the electoral college preserves the regional representation that is the cornerstone of the states' participation in federal government. However, there are fairly serious problems with the current situation:
1) To be elected by the electoral college, one has to get 50% of the votes, meaning that if you have three strong candidates, the election will nearly always be settled in the house with each state getting one vote. This effectively eliminates our chances of having more choice at the polls.
2) Winner-take-all system means that minority voters in highly partisan state are pretty much ignored. Try being a Democrat in Utah, for example.
To solve these problems while keeping the reprentative nature of the current system would require a modification to the way that we elect our presidents. However, we can do this and still remain true to our federal concepts....
For example, with instant runnoff voting, you could do as follows:
Each state submits an IRV ballot presented according to that state's laws which carries a weight equal to the number of congressional representatives that state has.
A sample state might do as follows:
A sort of reverse instant runoff voting in order to prepare this ballot. For example, the fist place winner gets the first place ballot. The voters for them then get their second place votes redistributed, etc.
Or they could simply have popular vote and present an IRV ballot accordingly.
Or use approval voting and submit an IRV ballot accordingly.....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I can easily envision the 95% who live in the 12 states (in this example) passing federal laws that do a variety of things: requiring that we strip-mine the resources; requiring that we operate massive land-fills in the non-scenic areas to dispose of waste from the urban states; requiring that we ban all development in scenic areas (even though the large majority of that 95% will never visit them); requiring energy-efficiency standards that make sense in an urban setting but are simply not practical in my state.
That's what the Senate and the Supreme court is supposed to help protect - abuse of the minority. There are plenty of checks in place currently, and realistically te president isn't really one of them, so why worry about the electoral college for presidential voting?
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
The Supreme Court really has no role in protecting minorities -- other than saying that a particular law violates the protections built into the Constitution. Further, suppose (since this is all hypothetical) that the 12 states in this example now control the House and the Presidency. You are right that the Senate can block bills from becoming law, but suppose a regulatory agency (and we've certainly got enough of those) establishes a regulation that takes all of Colorado's water and awards it to California (an example someone else used), and the President uses the forces at his disposal to enforce the regulation. Colorado goes to court and the Supremes rule that the action is unconstitutional. What happens?
The President ignores them. This has been at least threatened before -- Jackson famously said, "John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it now if he can." The check on this is that the President is supposed to be impeached. But in this example, the 12 states who have set out to loot the other 38 control the House, so no articles of impeachment are passed. With the Electoral College, this President will certainly not get elected the next time since the small states will band together. Without the College, those small states have no voice in selecting the President.
Granted, at this point the whole system has fallen apart. The Founders' writings certainly indicate that they were aware that such situations were theoretically possible. The Declaration of Independence becomes relevant: "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another... That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."
Look familiar?
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." -Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
Seems like I heard this somewhere.. Don't know where.
(Fictional example)
If state X has "12" electoral college votes, and 12,000,000 people vote then divide the 12 by 12,000,000 = 1,000,000 votes per electoral vote.
So in this example, each candidate gets 1 electoral vote for each full 1,000,000 votes they receive.
The issue where it has trouble is this example. Lets say it is a tough race and the candidates are neck and neck:
12,000,000 votes tallied.
Candidate A = 5,901,452
Candidate B = 5,912,353
Other candidates = 186,195
So Candidate A and B are tied at 5 electoral votes each. What do you do with the last 2 electoral votes?
1) Some say that the popular vote leader should get the final electoral votes if there are still electorals to earn and noone has enough votes for them.
2) Some say that the remaining electoral votes should be dropped. So a state's electoral votes are its "Theoretical" maximum, but they can only vote as many as they have the numbers for (so in the above example this state would only be worth 10 electoral votes instead of 12).
===
I am sure it has flaws, but I do like the fact that it combines the popular vote with the electoral college so that candidates still must compete on a national stage, but the individual votes have a greater impact.
In our current system in that example, more then 6 million votes would be ignored (12 electorals going to Candidate B), but in the above example at worst only 1-2 million votes would be ignored (5 electorals to Candidate A, and either 5 or 7 electorals to candidate B).
I kind of like Candidate Election Methods.
Ratification takes 3/4 majority. I still can't for the life of me understand how the 17th Amendment ever passed. There are people that claim irregularities regarding it; maybe there is a grain of truth to what they are saying.
Constitutionally Correct
IRV is used in various jurisdictions in Europe, Condorcet, to the best of my googling ability, isn't. The US has no excuse to have a system that is clearly proven to be inferior to other systems. We should use our US-is-Best mentality to get rid of EC and our Do-It-Our-Own-Way mentality to replace it with Condorcet.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
It all boils down to how you explain things. Not everyone is going to stay awake long enough to understand the math and matrix explanations. So use a different strategy, one that hinges on two nonmathematical concepts.:
Experts have proven that better methods exist, such as IRV which is used in Europe and numerous other jurisdictions and Condorcet which is even better but has yet to be adopted anywhere.
It is unamerican for an innovative nation such as the US to use an obsolete EC system that even morons know to be defective. We should be the first in the world to use the superior and innovative Condorcet Method.
The only problem left to solve is what to name the darn thing, condorcet is too French, condoset (that's the GA pronunciation) sounds like its only for city people, these names and others such as "Fair Voting" are too vague, subjective, and unscientific sounding. Not that everyone wants to understand the details, but just slapping the world "Fair" onto a system doesn't make it so. Most Americans are wise to the subjective labeling trick.
How about Pair-Wise Ranking? That sounds meaningful without exactly contradicting itself. It communicates that candidates are ranked and every pairing is significant. That's a good enough theoretical explanation for most and a start in the right direction for those who want to know more. Even the smartest person in the world can't infer anything useful from the word "Condorcet" except that it's French.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
Actually, yes, it is letting them have a bigger say. If 75% say "we want X, even if that hurts the 25%" then protecting the rights of that 25% means they have an absolute veto - they are actually more than 3x as powerful.
That's impossible. Even if 95% of the people are concentrated in 6 States, they are going to have about 426 votes. The rest get only 112. Yes, it's skewed, but not to the degree you think. Just because people in small population districts are a minority (almost by definition of "small population district") doesn't mean their concerns can be ignored. But in a pure democracy, a 95:5 ratio would make them pretty unimportant. I'm glad that protection of minorities is built into the system.
First, it's a misconception that the EC only helps "rural voters". Connecticut and Iowa both have 7 EC votes and therefore roughly equal populations, but the "ruralness" of Connecticut is in doubt.
Second, where are these cities? If they're all concentrated in the same states they are now (see my point above) then yes you'll probably see a widening of this supposed EC gap. That's not necessarily so, though. Even in this extreme example, your "rural" voters have only a 5x, not 20x, advantage. And if you look at it strictly as designed, the people have pretty similar voting power. Some of that "power" belongs to the States as political entities. This is part of being a federal republic.
Third, we are a federation of 50 "free and independent states". Why shouldn't one state have equal standing to any other in some ways? Should China dictate to everyone else at the UN just because it has the most people? (Barring for the moment any discussion of the UN's legitimacy.) No, that's ridiculous. As equally as possible, 436 votes are distributed between 51 regions by population. The other 102 votes are distributed equally between the 51. This is perfectly in keeping with the federal design that we have, treating every state equally yet respecting the fact that some states have more people than others.
Why not? I don't want to be seen primarily as part of a racial/gender/religious/whatever bloc. I am an individual. Where I happen to live is partly a result of chance (where I was born) and partly by choice (where I moved to). Geographic boundaries are therefore fairly neutral to "classification". Class/race/gender politics are already bitterly divisive. We need to move away from that, not entrench it further.
That is not the primary logic, though that is a secondary effect of the design. Some minority groups (religious, racial) happen to be concentrated geographically. The EC's districted approach means that in certain districts they are a significant force. The presidential candidate cannot ignore their concerns if he wants to win those districts. He has to have broad-based support.
It's been shown that voting by districts gives voters greater power, so the EC is a good thing. As long as State interests as well as popular interests must be represented in the singular office of the Chief Executive, any population imbalance between States will cause the pro
Constitutionally Correct
Yeah alot of people have made alot of good intelligent points on this issue, and i agree with alot of them. Its a lot to consider, so this is what i think should be done based on a collaboration of alot of the good ideas here.
Ok. I live in red state. Alot of people that i know who are democratic say its useless to vote, because the republicans will certainly win the majort. I would admit that i probably wouldn't vote either.
And if we did something like splitting the electoral votes in each state based on the percentage for each candidate, those who favor the minority vote in each state would be much more likely to vote. Each state would keep the same number of electoral votes, but they would be distributed so thier even the minorities votes count for something. So:
-Each state would have the same amount of power.
-The electoral votes are not winner take all, but distributed to each candidate in reflection of the views of ALL the poeple, not just 51% but
-The result is more accurate in reflection of the will of the people
-people, especially minority voters, would be much more likely to vote, increasing minority turnout