Skil, I really like that solution. It would make the electoral college an accurate reflection of the popular vote, and not allow for unfair advantage to any population big or small. It would however have to be updated regularly to reflect changes in population. Perhaps use Census info for it, and update once per decade. Too bad we can't write a cron script for the government.

On the face of it I cant see any objection to it. But I admit that I'm not that well versed in USA politics so there is probably an angle that I haven't thought of.

Since the election process is part of our Constitution we'd have to go through a constitiution amendment to change the process.
Another biproduct of this is, of course, have a better representation of a population. Some states get under represented while others are overly represented
Also note that by changing to what I describe we'd have diffent numbers of congressmen every 10 years. It wouldn't be a set number. We currently already use the census numbers to adjust how many electoral votes each state has already.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Wouldn't a more accurate reflection of the popular vote be a pure democracy? If we want a more accurate reflection of the popular vote, why don't we just move to a pure democracy?

We've tried to explain to you that we are a Republic. Sheesh keep up!!! ; )

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Skil, I really like that solution. It would make the electoral college an accurate reflection of the popular vote, and not allow for unfair advantage to any population big or small. It would however have to be updated regularly to reflect changes in population. Perhaps use Census info for it, and update once per decade. Too bad we can't write a cron script for the government.

On the face of it I cant see any objection to it. But I admit that I'm not that well versed in USA politics so there is probably an angle that I haven't thought of.

California also did away with legislative gerrymandering. State is so blue however it resulted in a super majority in both houses and the governor. Now there is no opposition party. Tax proposals are flying around like visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads.

http://holdpoliticiansaccountable.org/

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To cast the vote by each district
seems at first to be realistic.
But it's contradictory
to the democrat victory
and a republican win would be an easy predict.

If you look at a map
you'll see quit a gap.
Most of its red
which creates quite a spread
and republicans would win in a snap!

Not with a true reflection of popular vote.

Too bad the most populated states tend to be blue. The electoral college is the republicans only hope to inflate their votes to a victory, I dunno why you'd wanna do away with that. ;-)

As long as the democrats win, there's no need to change anything.

Sounds like the Republicans of years past to me...

I think a better solution would be to take the lowest state Number such as one of the dakotas or Rhode Island and then multiply out how many representatives we have. divide Each states population by that lowest population state. You may end up with more representatives or less depending on population shift and growth. For example, the lowest voter population is 500,000. Divide a states voter population by that number. For Texas say 13,200,000 voters equals 26 votes in the electoral college

Skil, I really like that solution. It would make the electoral college an accurate reflection of the popular vote, and not allow for unfair advantage to any population big or small. It would however have to be updated regularly to reflect changes in population. Perhaps use Census info for it, and update once per decade. Too bad we can't write a cron script for the government.

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#resist

How about this change:

Each elector is decided by the vote of the congressional district. Then the two given for the senate are on the state wide vote.

Might get us a more interesting election. Suddenly no state can be taken for granted and a lot more of the country will be purple.

And the right can spend more time and money redistricting and they can affect Presidential races instead of just Congressional.

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#resist

The non-partisan commission certainly would help a lot. Given the politics of this, the only way that happens is after a state wide referendum. That has happened in Arizona -- and then the legislature and governor tried VERY hard to oust the chairman because they didn't like the re-districting. Fortunately, that didn't work -- as a result, in Arizona, the Congressional delegation is (after all the votes get counted -- which hasn't happened yet -- another story there) going to end up 5/4 one way or another. If the legislature and governor in Arizona had done the redistricting -- it would have been 6/3 or 7/2 Republican.

In Pennsylvania, where the legislature and governor called the redistricting shots (2010 election was really nice for Republicans), while the votes for the 18 spots was just about 50/50 == the Republicans ended up with 13 out of 18.

This year the total congressional vote was pretty much dead even (Democrats outpolled Repubican candidates by a very small margin), but, thanks to the districting games, we ended up with something like 238 to 197 Republican.

So, I'm all for getting rid of the gerrymandering. Not sure I'm for electoral votes by district though -- but if we got rid of the gerrymandering games, my objection to that electoral change would be muted.

A separate problem, which can be solved by taking that power away from the legislature and making it non-partisan commission job, with a fall back that if the commission can't agree by the cutoff date, pie wedges from the population center, first cut due north rotating clockwise. Believe me, they will agree before deadline.

My guess to the initial question is never.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Electoral College delegates based on congressional districts will give more power to the gerrymanders in State legislatures

A separate problem, which can be solved by taking that power away from the legislature and making it non-partisan commission job, with a fall back that if the commission can't agree by the cutoff date, pie wedges from the population center, first cut due north rotating clockwise. Believe me, they will agree before deadline.

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How about this change:

Each elector is decided by the vote of the congressional district. Then the two given for the senate are on the state wide vote.

Might get us a more interesting election. Suddenly no state can be taken for granted and a lot more of the country will be purple.

Umm, Pennsylvania anyone? Looking at the number of Republican House seats won (13 Republican vs 5 Democratic) you wouldn't realize that more people in that state voted for a Democratic Representative (50.2%) than a Republican one (48.9%). Electoral College delegates based on congressional districts will give more power to the gerrymanders in State legislatures, they've already given us a Republican House on a smaller share of the popular vote than the Democratic Party won, do we really want them to decide who our president should be? When this page is updated with 2012 results it will make for some interesting rading for those in states with result similar to PA's.

Apportioning the delegation votes on the basis of votes won statewide, rather than the winner takes all may be a fairer way to produce a system where more states turn purple ...

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I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

The apportionment problem exists in the house of representatives as well as the electoral college.

for instance, there are about 944,000 residents in Montana's single district, compared to about 515,000 in Wyoming's.
The current size of 435 seats means one member represents on average about 709,760 people.

I suppose we could double the number of representatives to reduce it, but it will still exist. Of course with twice as many opinionated self serving bastar^h^h^h^h^h^h politicains even less could get done. Or do you want to give fractional votes to the representatives and electors?

I think we have to live with this problem.

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I think the bigger problem is that congressional districts are not all alike. Some represent an entire state which makes the job more "important" than the senators. Also populations in each district vary. You might have a couple hundred thousand represented in rural stats and a great deal more in urban areas.

I think a better solution would be to take the lowest state Number such as one of the dakotas or Rhode Island and then multiply out how many representatives we have. divide Each states population by that lowest population state. You may end up with more representatives or less depending on population shift and growth. For example, the lowest voter population is 500,000. Divide a states voter population by that number. For Texas say 13,200,000 voters equals 26 votes in the electoral college

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

How about this change:

Each elector is decided by the vote of the congressional district. Then the two given for the senate are on the state wide vote.

Might get us a more interesting election. Suddenly no state can be taken for granted and a lot more of the country will be purple.

Gary, on the surface of it, one of the better ideas you have come up with.

Oh just to be more purple, lets allow split the ticket. Vote for each state elector separate from the district elector.

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How about this change:

Each elector is decided by the vote of the congressional district. Then the two given for the senate are on the state wide vote.

Might get us a more interesting election. Suddenly no state can be taken for granted and a lot more of the country will be purple.

Gary, on the surface of it, one of the better ideas you have come up with.

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How about this change:

Each elector is decided by the vote of the congressional district. Then the two given for the senate are on the state wide vote.

Might get us a more interesting election. Suddenly no state can be taken for granted and a lot more of the country will be purple.

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the problem with 1 direct vote vs Our current system is that direct counting of votes can easily be gamed.

By this I mean that it would only take 1 city or state to have ballot dumping and boom the election is thrown. With an Electoral college you'd need to corrupt not just a city or state but multiple cities in multiple states to sway an election.

All in all, the electoral college while clumbsy is a much harder system to defraud

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

My reaction to the thread title is -



WHAT? Do you expect Americans to do something that is both simple and sensible??

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?