Count Maru wrote: > Erik Reuter wrote: > > The electors themselves are mostly irrelevant > > (although they could conceivably suprise someday) > > but the Electoral College itself does have some > > interesting properties as compared to a straight > > majority vote: > > > > From the Archive: Math Against Tyranny > > By Will Hively > > September 30, 2004 > > I have a quibble with the article. It doesn't address > the way low population states are spotted (overall) a > few extra electors as compared with high population > states. This intentionally skews the overall number > of electors and the allotment of electors for dense > population areas.
This 'skewing' was decided by the Founding Fathers. It was a compromise between a vote of the people and a vote of the states. In my proposal I have the president directly elected by the people, but I also have some compensation for the (small) states (House+Primaries). I have some other problems with the article. Natapoff seemes to want to reach a conclusion that the Electoral College was good for the US, and he arrived there. He poses a situation where 51% vote for one side and 49% for the other, and but many of the 51% are concentrated in one state, while the 49%, winning two states, would win the election. He asserts the 51% are the bad side, and does not take into account that it might be the other way around. He also states that a high voting power is a safeguard against tyranny (voting power being the amount one voter's decision can influence the overall result). Then he uses some math to explore the voting power in his ideal system, in which people in all states vote similar, but fails to adress the real situation where most states lean heavily to one side or the other. If someone lives in such a state, his voting power is near zero: either if the vote is close nationwide, then his own state clearly falls to one party, and while his state matters in the nation, his vote does not matter in his state. If the other party becomes stronger, his state might become close, and his votes matters there, but his state doesn't matter in the nation where the other party won by a landslide. If someone lives in a swing state, however, the voting power is very high when the nationwide vote is close, because then his vote matters in the state and the state matters in the nation. If the nationwide vote is leaning to one side, his voting power is near zero. So in a nationwide vote leaning to one side, people in all states have a voting power of near zero. In a close vote, people in swing states have a high voting power while the others still have a power near zero. In contrast, if the election was direct, all people would have an equal voting power. If it was close, it would be much lower than in a swing state in the current model, but the sum of the voting powers of all people would be similar to the sum in the current model; just the inequality of voting power would go away. -- Frank Schmidt Onward, radical moderates! www.egscomics.com +++ Sparen beginnt mit GMX DSL: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
