Electorial College Reform

[Heretic]

This is just my modest proposal to modify the electorial college to more represent the votes of the general population.

Some background

1) The house of representatives was created so that large states had representation representative of their population, the senate was created so that small states had a say in the government regardless of their population

2) Each state gets electorial votes equal to the number of congresmen and senators that they posses

3) Most states the winner of the general election takes all, some are set up differently, there is no federal standard in a federal election (why?)

Finally my proposal is that the winner of a state gets the two electorial votes that go along with the two senate seats, but each congressional district is counted seperately, the winner of that congressional district wins the electorial vote cooresponding to that congressional representative. I believe this would keep the large states from stomping on the small states when electing a president, the current system a canidate only has to win 4 or 5 states by 1 vote and can loose all other states by a landslide and still be elected.

With the current state of technology we no longer need the electoral college and I think it is a waste of money that could be better spent somewhere else but there are those that say "its tradition" so I offer this compromise.

 

[vraiblonde]

Well, something should be changed, that's for sure. I might like to see electoral votes split up - so like if Maryland has 8 electoral votes (?) in a Presidential election, they should be allocated by the districts' popular counts. If 6 districts predominantly vote for the Democratic candidate and 2 districts vote for the Republican candidate, the electoral votes should be split accordingly instead of all and nothing.

As it stands, we're all held hostage to the big cities and, unfortunately, they aren't doing such a hot job of managing their own problems - what makes us think they can make good decisions for the rest of us?

 

[kelley]

I completely support the electoral college reform that you guys are discussing. If it had been in effect in 2000, Al Gore, the winner of the popular vote would have won the election. Yet that reformed method would also be lacking because in some states there is an electoral vote per 100,000 people (like South Dakota) but in others there is an electoral vote per over a million people (like California and Texas). The best thing to do in my opinion is to abolish the damn thing altogether.

 

[MGKrebs]

Amazing!

I think this is the first time I've ever agreed with Heretic on anything! Nice thought, homey!

I wouldn't want to abolish the electoral college, though. There is one more function it provides;

Electors are not bound by law to vote for the candidate who wins. They are appointed by the party though, so they almost always will. However, in the event that some wacko like David Duke get the most votes, or maybe there is some huge last minute scandal after the election, the electors are one final double-check to keep us from making a big mistake.

 

[Heretic]

Yes but there could also be some conspiracy where they actually put some wacko in office that didnt receive the popular vote, or any votes for that matter....