I think the EC is actually an obstacle to election method reform. The EC can take an FBC-compliant method and make it non-compliant, for instance. Suppose one large state selects a Green slate of electors by Approval, and this causes the Republican candidate to win because that state, that usually selects a Democratic slate of electors, went Green. If some of the voters in the Greens > Democrats > Republicans camp had not voted Green then they would have improved their outcome.
It would be harder to make people see the advantages of a new method if adopting that method fails to bring those promised advantages. So abolishing the EC is either a prerequisite or a corequisite to getting a better method in place. -- Richard Alexander Small wrote: > It's one thing to give a minority of the population (e.g. the small states) > a veto against the exercise of power, and quite another to let them > exercise power against the popular will. The latter can happen when the > President is elected against the popular will (we can debate which method > best ascertains the popular will) and nominates a judge or implements a > treaty with the consent of Senators representing a minority of the > population. > > The only small states vs. big states arguments that I'm aware of in US > history occured at the Constitutional Convention. The most polarizing > issue after the Convention was slavery, and there were large and small > states on both sides. Some might point to debates over land use in the > Western US, where a great deal of land is subject to federal rather than > state control, but many of those federal laws were approved by > environmentalists in states like Hawaii, Rhode Island, Delaware, Vermont, > etc. > > Nonetheless, there is a perception that the EC protects small states, and > that will make abolishing the EC an uphill battle. Some uphill battles are > worth fighting, but the list of anomalous elections is small (1824, 1876, > 1888, maybe 1960, and 2000). As long as we have a 2-party system the EC > will function fine with only occasional flukes due to spoilers and/or super- > close races. > > Pragmatically, there's no point in fighting the uphill battle until we have > a major third party, sending many Presidential elections to the House. > Anomalous elections will then be frequent and we'll have a powerful > argument for popular elections. > > As everybody on this list knows, plurality voting promotes a 2-party > system. Regardless of what you think about the EC, it will be with us for > some time to come until a long series of anomalous elections occurs, and > that will not happen until we have a different election method. Since > there seems to be a consensus on the list that Approval Voting is superior > to plurality and is also easy to implement, that is the best target for > immediate action. > > Btw, I like the argument that "I could decide that the upper 1/10th of CA > is under-represented and needs protection." > > Alex Small > > >
