How about doing this for the Electoral College?

Wolrab said:
The system is not broke and there in reason to fix it to ensure the democrats win everything forever, which is, of coarse, what is written between the lines in all the posts lamenting the election results.
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Wouldn't if be fun to see how these folks would have acted if the roles were reversed?

I suppose this is all they have left. :)
 
Why not just have representatives and senators elect our president then? For more efficient, and we're already voting for these individuals who run on a platform their constituents generally support.
 
Spock Jenkins said:
Why not just have representatives and senators elect our president then? For more efficient, and we're already voting for these individuals who run on a platform their constituents generally support.
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It is fine as a backup plan but we evaluate legislators on their legislative judgement. Executive assessment is a different beast.
 
Even the tiniest nationwide change to the system would have the same technical hurdle to get past as a total replacement: Constitutional Amendment. And there is significant popular support for totally replacing the Electoral College with simple popular vote, but not for half-measures that leave the old system partially the same. So there's no need for a halfway middleground approach and nobody to compromise with to settle for one.

Brainster said:
Right up until the moment that a Republican wins the popular vote, but would have lost in the electoral college.
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The orientation of the Electoral College Gap is not random; it is to consistently favor rural voters over urban ones.
 
Again, why not repeal the law that caps the HoR at 435? That is the main reason why a vote in Wyoming is worth 4x a vote in California. If you make it truly proportional, say 1 representative for every 500,000 people in a state, that means presidential candidates can't just focus on a handful of counties in the same 10 states.
 
Donal said:
Again, why not repeal the law that caps the HoR at 435? That is the main reason why a vote in Wyoming is worth 4x a vote in California. If you make it truly proportional, say 1 representative for every 500,000 people in a state, that means presidential candidates can't just focus on a handful of counties in the same 10 states.
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I'd be okay with this idea, as long as the ratio were such that it drastically reduced the overall number of representatives. 435 is already too many.
 
BobTheCoward said:
It would boost it by about 200.

How is it too many?
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I was off. It is about 110. The math is real easy.

US population 318.9 million
Population of Wyoming (smallest state) is 584,153.

If Wyoming gets one representative, that would require 545 representatives.
 
theprestige said:
I'd be okay with this idea, as long as the ratio were such that it drastically reduced the overall number of representatives. 435 is already too many.
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The only way that works is if you have Congressional districts that envelope multiple states. ie Idaho, the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana all share one representative. That won't happen. Each state should get at least one rep. Besides, how does that work for the Electoral college?

I was thinking more like what Bob illustrated. Take the population of the smallest state and work off multiples of that.
 
Donal said:
I was thinking more like what Bob illustrated. Take the population of the smallest state and work off multiples of that.
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If the objective is to have fewer congress people then set the quota at double the population of the smallest state. Any state that has half a quota or more after dividing their population by the quota will get an extra representative.

So states with 0.5 to 1.5 quotas get one rep.
States with 1.5 to 2.5 quotas get 2 reps.
and so on.
 
Craig4 said:
I'd rather see more states join the Popular Vote Interstate Compact. It's at 165 electoral votes now. It comes into effect when enough states join that the members have 270 electoral votes. Under this system, member states pledge their votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote.
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I think it's called the National Front Popular Vote Interstate Compact

And it'll survive right up until until a Republican wins the popular vote.
 
Noztradamus said:
I think it's called the National Front Popular Vote Interstate Compact

And it'll survive right up until until a Republican wins the popular vote.
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I assume that you are referring to a Republican winning the popular cot and losing the electoral vote.
 
Easy solution:

States pass a law requiring Electors to vote for who ever won the national Popular vote, or face a $100,000 fine.
 
Craig4 said:
I'd rather see more states join the Popular Vote Interstate Compact. It's at 165 electoral votes now. It comes into effect when enough states join that the members have 270 electoral votes. Under this system, member states pledge their votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote.
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That wouldn't solve the problem of the "wrong" people winning the presidency though. All that would happen is that candidates would run differently. Current swing states would become meaningless, while candidates would spend all their time campaigning in larger states. There would still be only a few states determining the winner, it would just be a different few states.
 
cmikes said:
That wouldn't solve the problem of the "wrong" people winning the presidency though. All that would happen is that candidates would run differently. Current swing states would become meaningless, while candidates would spend all their time campaigning in larger states. There would still be only a few states determining the winner, it would just be a different few states.
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Is this actually true though?

With the current system, a votes a candidate receives that exceed plurality in the a given state are essentially "wasted". With a popular-vote-only system, candidates have the ability to offset deficits in one locality worth surpluses in another locality.
 
cmikes said:
That wouldn't solve the problem of the "wrong" people winning the presidency though. All that would happen is that candidates would run differently. Current swing states would become meaningless, while candidates would spend all their time campaigning in larger states. There would still be only a few states determining the winner, it would just be a different few states.
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I hear this a lot, but I don't think it makes any sense.

If you have a national popular vote, the "states" don't matter. At worst, you might see a concentration in media markets.

On the other hand, every vote matters, so a vote in North Dakota is just as important as a vote in California.

In today's world, candidates don't buy much national advertising, because reaching every single American is expensive, and most of them don't matter for electoral purposes. Only swing states matter, so candidates only pay attention to people in those states.

If there is a popular vote system and they end up focusing on places where there are large concentrations of people, that's ok, because there are large concentrations of people. If 10 million people have concerns, that really should trump 1 million different people with different concerns. Nevertheless, every single voter with an issue is a potential vote that matters in the election. Candidates couldn't afford to ignore anyone in a close election.
 
Meadmaker said:
I hear this a lot, but I don't think it makes any sense.

If you have a national popular vote, the "states" don't matter. At worst, you might see a concentration in media markets.

On the other hand, every vote matters, so a vote in North Dakota is just as important as a vote in California.

In today's world, candidates don't buy much national advertising, because reaching every single American is expensive, and most of them don't matter for electoral purposes. Only swing states matter, so candidates only pay attention to people in those states.

If there is a popular vote system and they end up focusing on places where there are large concentrations of people, that's ok, because there are large concentrations of people. If 10 million people have concerns, that really should trump 1 million different people with different concerns. Nevertheless, every single voter with an issue is a potential vote that matters in the election. Candidates couldn't afford to ignore anyone in a close election.
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Well, yes, technically every vote matters. But if you're a presidential candidate with limited resources, why would you concentrate your advertising, time, and campaigning where there are only a few people to influence?

For instance, my own home state of West Virginia has less than two million residents in the entire state. What candidate would be concerned with that when they could be saturating New York City (population 8.5 million people) or the Los Angeles area (population 18 million people) with ad buys and campaign stops?

Ironically enough, it's exactly that attitude that only the coastal elites matter and to hell with the vast swathes of "flyover country" that has led to the rise of Trump.
 
cmikes said:
Ironically enough, it's exactly that attitude that only the coastal elites matter and to hell with the vast swathes of "flyover country" that has led to the rise of Trump.
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Or perhaps it is the (erroneous) belief among the residents of the "flyover country" that the "coastal elites" don't care about them that lead to Trump's ascendancy.
 
cmikes said:
Well, yes, technically every vote matters. But if you're a presidential candidate with limited resources, why would you concentrate your advertising, time, and campaigning where there are only a few people to influence?

For instance, my own home state of West Virginia has less than two million residents in the entire state. What candidate would be concerned with that when they could be saturating New York City (population 8.5 million people) or the Los Angeles area (population 18 million people) with ad buys and campaign stops?

Ironically enough, it's exactly that attitude that only the coastal elites matter and to hell with the vast swathes of "flyover country" that has led to the rise of Trump.
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But you are in the Pittsburgh media market. No, West Virginia as an entity won't matter, but those people who listen to the radio that broadcasts from the nearest population concentration do.

And, if there aren't very many of you, then it makes sense that you don't have much influence. On the other hand, as "rural Americans" there are a lot of you, so a candidate trying to get your vote will focus on rural Americans everywhere in America, as opposed to those who happen to live in Michigan.

The only thing you actually lose is that, suddenly, West Virginia coal mining concerns are not shared by Eastern Ohio, and so coal mining can't tip that large industrial state in one direction or another. Instead, issues that affect coal miners will have influence proportional to the number of coal miners, instead of being amplified because some of those coal miners share a state with manufacturing and agricultural interests.
 
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