Today, most states give all of their Electoral College votes to the candidate who won the state's popular vote. But there is no law that requires them to do that. There are a couple of states that give them out by percentage.
Here's a new idea, and I want to get comments on it.
Each state gets a number of electors equal to the number of House and Senate seats they have. Instead of giving them all to the overall winner, each Elector that came attached to a House seat gives their Electoral vote to the winner within that House district. The two Electors that you get for your Senate seats go to the overall winner for the state.
Result: you no longer have four or five battleground states, you have dozens of battleground districts and candidates have to run nationwide campaigns. The winner will be more representative of the people's votes, but statewide winners still get 20% of the Electoral votes.
What do you think?
2006-10-11 06:32:30 · 8 answers · asked by Chredon 5 in Politics & Government ➔ Elections
There is certainly some validity to considering this. One thing that would be a concern is that districts will be further gerrymandered to affect how elections will turn out in subsequent elections. The most fair way to allocate population to house districts might be to start in one corner (northwest for example) and go southeast until the appropriate fraction equal to 1 divided by the number of seats in the state has been reached. County and large city integrity should be maintained so as to minimize divisions in a county or city.
Another comment is that what you propose essentially makes each house district like a state and when combined with my theory would make each county or large city a contributor to that result in a unified way.
One last comment - such a plan would generate blue districts in the South and red ones in the north and would throw chaos into those legislators wanting to pass along political favors to 'states' who vote a certain way.
2006-10-11 07:52:52 · answer #1 · answered by kin865 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don't specifically care for your suggestion. The electoral college was designed to ensure that the large population centers do not dominate politics. This was a problem over 230 years ago and it still holds true today.
Obviously people want the total vote count to be the way we elect our president. However it goes back to the issue that the large population centers would dominate the politics. So someone from North Dakota who may be a great leader, would never get elected.
The current system is not broken in my opinion and it will take a majority of states and a consititution amendment to make a change to our voting system. So I wish people would move on from this issue. It is asked about 5 or 6 times per week.
2006-10-11 16:41:07 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Good thought. Some states (two I think as of 2000) already do that, and it could be implemented in every state if that state's legislature chose to.
Part of the problem is the timing of primary elections, tho. States with early primaries (Iowa, New Hampshire, etc.) get more attention from candidates, as do states with large populations that don't have strong majorities in either party (Florida, etc.) Those states are "battlegrounds" for several reasons, and any solution has to address those other reasons too.
But this is a good start. If your state doesn't award electoral votes proportionally, call one of your state reps and ask him/her to sponsor legislation to that effect. Start the change yourself! :-D
2006-10-11 13:34:14 · answer #3 · answered by Trips 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Takes power away from the state (Which is the intention of the electoral college) and puts it back in the hands of the densely populated areas.... I do not like this one bit... for it weakens the smaller states who are empowered by the electoral college
2006-10-11 13:36:35 · answer #4 · answered by DiamondDave 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Great idea! It more closely reflects the will of the voters. After all, isn't that the purpose of democracy? We realize that the final outcome must be winner-take-all, but up to that point, it doesn't have to be that way and you have a great idea. Now try to get it past your state legislature.
2006-10-11 22:54:50 · answer #5 · answered by correrafan 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nope, I say get rid of the Electoral College votes completely. What purpose does it serve? You have a good idea though, maybe it would work. Because they dont seem to be interested in getting rid of the college completely.
2006-10-11 13:38:20 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Make it easy. The person who receives the most votes becomes President.
2006-10-11 13:44:38 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Why don't we put the election in the hands of the PEOPLE?
2006-10-11 14:25:22 · answer #8 · answered by professionaleccentric 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋