Despite what you've heard from residents of the small states, this is incorrect. Because the electors are chosen by a winner-take-all system, the Electoral College actually gives MORE power to large states. To illustate what I mean by this, consider this vastly simplified hypothetical scenario: There are only 3 states, to which I will refer as A, B, and C. State A has a population of 2 500 000, and has five representatives in the House. States B and C each have a population of 500 000, so they each have only one representative. At first glance, it seems that states B and C are overrepresented: they have 6 electoral votes per million people whereas A has only 2.8 electoral votes per million people. However, the smaller states might as well not have any votes at all because the largest state will determine the result of the election (The only possible outcomes are 7-6, 10-3, and 13-0 in favor of whomever the largest state chooses.) While smaller states are more important in real life with 50 states and 538 electorial votes (In fact, if just one of the 3-vote states had voted for Gore, he would have won the election.), there is still a built-in bias in favor of large states. This is why candidates generally spend more time campaigning in Calfornia (54 votes) and Florida (25 votes) than Wyoming or Alaska (3 votes each). You are correct that the currect system is flawed. It is ridiculous that a few hundred ballots in one state can determine the entire election. However, it would not be wise to switch to a pure popular vote system. If, in future elections, the popular vote is again within a 0.3% margin, it would be necessary to have a recount at the national level. Multiply the Florida problems by 19 and it's clear that electing a president by popular vote is a bad idea. The one advantage of the Electoral College is that it limits the effect of local voting irregulatities to one state. Imho, the best way solution is to replace the winner-take-all system with a proportional vote system, which would elimate the possiblity of 25 electoral votes depending on a few hundred ballots. It is also likely to increase voter turnout. (In the US, it is common for people to not bother to vote because they already know who's going to win the election in their state.) Unfortunately, such a policy is far too reasonable to be enacted anytime soon, so we're stuck with the 12th Amendment rules for a while. --- Bill Potts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Daniel Bishop wrote: > > Gore received only 48.6% of the popular vote; Bush > got > > 48.3%. The difference has no practical > significance > > except to those who are looking for a reason to > > discredit Bush. > > The difference between the popular vote outcome and > the Electoral College > outcome does, however, give us very good reason to > question the Electoral > College system, which gives the less-populated > states a bigger say, per > capita, than the more populous ones. > > [For those who don't know, the number of Electors > (for each party) per state > is equal to the number of congressional districts > plus 2. It's just like the > relationship between the number of house members and > the number of senators, > except that, in Congress, the two houses don't vote > at the same time on the > same issue.] > > Bill Potts, CMS > San Jose, CA > http://metric1.org [SI Navigator} > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/
