On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 12:01:16 -0400, Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, Oct 11, 2004 at 11:55:05AM -0400, Bryon Daly wrote: > > > I agree that there's a lot of good though behind it, but I think that > > times have changed and the system doesn't serve us that well any > > longer, as it stands. But really my main argument was the need to fix > > the "winner takes the state" system rather than to toss the EC out > > altogether. > > Bryon: > > Perhaps I'm not understanding your point. Could you summarize in a > paragraph or so: > > 1) the main problem(s) of the current system and > > 2) your proposal to fix it?
My main problem with the system as it is now, I suppose, is that if you're a Kerry supporter in, say, Alabama or a Bush supporter in Massachusetts, your vote has zero potential for impact on the race, *even if the race is extremely close from a nationwide perspective*. I don't mean this in some nihilistic "it just doesn't matter" kind of way. What I mean is that a vote for Bush or Kerry in Iowa or PA is infinitely more important that one in MA/AL. I'd prefer if every person's presidential vote was of equal value regardless of which state they lived in. The root cause of that problem, as I see it, is that most states award the winner of the state's popular vote all of the state's electoral vote. That means that whether only one person voted for the loser or 49.9% or the people did, its essentially treated as if 100% voted for the winner as far as the EC is concerned. We don't have one national election, we essentially have 50 statewide elections, of which quite a few are foregone conclusions or nearly so. It seems to me that with this system, a worst case scenario could result in up to nearly 75% of the voters voting for the candidate that loses. That's extremely unlikely, of course, but a possibility that illustrates the flaw, I think. The solutions I see are: 1) dump the EC and just use the nationwide popular vote to decide the presidential election. But the little states (pop-wise) are given an advantage within the EC system that I can see the merits of, the EC would actually be useful if we ever had a strong 3rd party, and it would require a constitutional amendment to change in any case, so I'm not pushing/recommending this solution. 2) get all the states to abandon the "winner takes all" EC vote allocation and go to something that allocates votes in a way more proportional to the popular vote. (Either a straight proportion, or the by-district thing). Thus then, if the loser of a state gets 30% of the vote, he'd get roughly 30% of the EC votes, and those voters would then still have some impact on the national election scale. And there'd be far less likelihood that the loser of the popular vote would win the election. I think this allocation is decided on a per-state basis, so no changes to the US Constitution should be required. I hope that clarifies things! -Bryon _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
