I had an interesting discussion about the electoral college today. A co-worker asked me if I am for keeping or abolishing it. I am definitely for keeping it with some small modifications. I would do away with the electoral voters themselves and simply have assigned votes. I am also toying with the idea of doing away with the winner take the whole state system, and replacing it to where each congressional district's votes are counted individually, with the 2 extra votes going to the winner of the state. I believe that this would encourage a better voter turn out. For example:
California has 55 electoral votes, 1 per congressional district and one for each senator. Under my system each congressional districts votes would be counted individually. Since the vast majority of voters live in the mainly liberal cities of LA and SanFran, conservative voters in rural areas have little incentive to vote since their vote won't likely change the outcome of the state election and all of the college votes will go to one party. If each district votes separately, now their is significant incentive to vote since each voter has a much greater chance of swaying the outcome in his district than in his state. Their is still incentive for candidates to try to appeal to the whole state since the 2 extra votes are still up for grabs. So a likely scenario for California would have the Democrats receiving around 35 votes and Republicans receiving 18 with the 2 extra votes going to the Democrats for carrying the popular vote in the state.
I believe that this would result in higher voter turn out as previously stated, as well as less voter fraud since a small group of people could only corrupt the vote of a single district as opposed to a whole state. Also, there would never be a case where the vote of entire state would have to be recounted, only that of individual districts.
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Proposals to divide a state's electoral votes by congressional district would magnify the worst features of our antiquated system of electing the President.
Under the process currently used everywhere except Maine and Nebraska, all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in that state. The effect of this winner-take-all rule is that candidates have no reason to campaign in states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. Candidates concentrate over two-thirds of their money and visits on just six closely divided battleground states, and 99% of their expenditures in just 16 states. Two thirds of the states (including California) are ignored in presidential elections.
The proposed ballot measure would not, as claimed, make California relevant in presidential elections. The presidential race is a foregone conclusion in 50 of the California’s 53 grossly gerrymandered congressional districts. Candidates would have no incentive to pay any more attention than they do now to California remaining 50 districts or the state as a whole. Nationwide, there are only 41 districts that are competitive in presidential elections — less than 10%.
If the district approach were used nationally, it would less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. When Gore won the national popular vote in 2000, but Bush won 55% of the country’s congressional districts. In 2004, Bush’s won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts.
A national popular vote is the way to guarantee that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states becomes President. It is the way to make every person’s vote relevant, regardless of where that person lives.
See www.NationalPopularVote.com
First, thank you for your comment.
Second, I think that you are making the assumption that voter turn out would be the same under the system I propose as under the current system. I believe it would be much higher since a persons vote caries more weight in a smaller pool of voters. I believe that a national vote would result in a lower voter turn out since the perception is that one vote among 100,000,000 is irrelevent. There is math to back this up. I refer you to the following article: http://www.avagara.com/e_c/reference/00012001.htm
I also support the electoral college because it emphasizes the federalist nature of our union. We are not a nation in the sense that other nations are but a union of individual states. That is not my opinion but a fact as stated in our Constitution. Our country was designed this way deliberately and it has served us well so far. We would do well to remember this and shy away from those things that would move us away from our unique system of government.
I do not claim to be an expert. I hold no advanced degrees in political science. I am but one man with an opinion, and I appreciate yours. Again, thank you.
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