Bryon Daly wrote: > On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 23:13:55 -0400, JDG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> At 11:55 AM 10/11/2004 -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. >> >> The "winner takes the State" system, however, accomplishes two >> things: >> >> 1) Limits the influence of third parties. For example, if Ralph >> Nader or Michael Badnarik were to garner a couple electoral votes, >> either could >> hold the "balance of power" for the Presidency. Under the current >> system, the "balance of power" is more likely to lie in the middle >> than the extremes. > > An interesting point in a way, but as I understand it, that was a huge > point of the electoral system: when multiple parties were in the > running, the electors for the last-place parties could shift their > votes to the "lesser evil" party of their choice to try to best > represent the wishes of the voters they represent. > > But in any case, you're assuming that the Democrats and Republicans > represent the "middle", and 3rd parties must represent the extremes. > For Nader and Badnarik that might be the case, but could you say that > for Perot in 92 or maybe John Anderson in 1980? Anyway, I think it's > possible for a third party to better represent the middle (or at least > be no further from it) than the Dems & Reps. are. > >> 2) It forces attention on small States. For example, a lot of >> attention >> is being given to Iowa and New Mexico in this election cycle. >> Under a proportional system, it would take a shift of 10-20% to >> shift even one EV >> in those States. On the other hand, it would only take a small >> shift of 1-5% to swing EVs in large States. > > But we're talking percentages of greatly differing size populations: > that 1-5% in a large state can actually work out to needing to swing > a lot more people than the 10-20% in a small state > > I think we already discussed this, though. I understand your point > that it's easier to reach more people via the biggest mass markets, > but it's also costlier, and your alternative is that these larger > groups of people are able to be mostly ignored while smaller groups > elsewhere get overimportant value (based on their relative > population). > > My core feeling is that states don't vote, people do, and everyone > should have a (near) equal say. > >> 3) It forces attention on "swing States". If the US were to move >> to a >> pure popular vote system, States like NM, IA, and WI would get token >> attention at best. In addition, we would probably see a lot of >> attention given by President Bush to states like TX, UT, AL, and MS >> in order to try and turn out ever-more of his base, and likewise >> Kerry would spend much >> more time in NY, CA, and MA trying to turn out his base. The >> Electoral > > Well, while I mostly like the idea of a pure popular vote system, my > main suggestion was to go to a vote-proportional type electoral > system. And under a proportional system, there wouldn't be that sort > of incentive due to diminishing returns. > >> College, however, encourages candidates to make their cases to >> pretty much the same geographical group of voters... and again >> forces attention on the center, rather than the extremes. > > Well, I'd say it encourages candidates to focus their attention on a > small number of states while leaving them both free to largely ignore > the majority of the rest. > > Aside - I just took a good look at the actual state voting results and > had some interesting/surprising (to me) findings. I plugged all the > numbers from http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm into a > spreadsheet and calculated the proportional EV results. > > Most of the states were split far more evenly than I had thought they > were. There were only 10 states where one side got 60% or more of the > vote. > > By my calculations, with proportional EV assignment by state pop vote, > Bush would have gotten 267 EV, Gore 266 EV, and Nader 5 EV. (BTW, if > you ignore all the 3rd parties and just use the Dem/Rep pop vote > percentages to assign the EV, it is a dead heat at 269-269.) This is > all pretty surprising to me - I had thought it would be much more > lopsided result one way or the other. It seems the winner/loser vote > ratios for each state balanced each other out, but since the victory > margins per state are generally so small, I guess it's not really that > surprising. > Spreadsheet here: http://users.rcn.com/daly5/EVprop.xls > > So it seems I've shown (to myself at least) that the current > winner-takes-state system doesn't have as much impact as I thought it > would, at least for the 2000 vote. But that seems more because the > state races were pretty evenly divided and cancel each other out than > because the system is inherently fair. It'd be interesting to check > this with the 2004 results (and/or past elections as well) to see if > it generally works out fairly closely whether it's winner-takes-state, > or proportional EV assignment. > The problem with the electoral college is not in the electoral college, but in the way populations are represented in Congress. I would think that this lack of representation on an everyday basis would be of much greater concern.
Just to make sure my message is clear: *The Problem Is A Lack Of Fair Representation* Using Wyoming as a benchmark, where you have 1 congressperson per (roughly) 500,000 people, 2 Senators (as always) and 3 Electoral votes. Compare to California where you have 1 Congressperson per 639,088 people, 2 Senators, and 55 Electoral votes. That doesn't sound all that bad offhand, but if California had representation equal to Wyomings you would get 67 Congresspersons and 69 Electoral votes. That is a net gain of 12 Congresspersons and 14 Electoral votes. This lack of representation effects at least 48 states that I can identify. Of those states, 25 are short one representative, and 10 are shorted by 2. Only Iowa and DC are represented in the same proportion as Wyoming and the rest are shorted between 3 and 14 representatives. Law limits Congress to 435 Representatives, but if representation were proportional there would be 549, an increase of 114 representatives. I do not see why this number should be unwieldy or why it would cause difficulty. xponent 2000 Census Maru rob _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
