NationStates Jolt Archive

I sure hope people don't put this on the back shelf simply because we had a legitimate election.

I'm still working on ideas.

One idea that I had is this:

Each state gets a number of electoral votes equal to members of Congress. Both House and Senate. So every state would have at least a few. Connecticut, my state for instance, would have 4. Texas would have 34 (32 reps+2 senators).

Now, Whichever wins the popular vote in each state wins the 2 electoral votes for that state. In addition, each representative district awards 1 vote to the candidate that wins the popular vote in that district.

The beauty of this is that it will work even better at doing what the Electoral College was designed to do, namely give small spread-out communities just as much electoral power as tightly packed urban areas. Second, and most importantly, it will be a wedge against the two-party system.

Consider this: If you want to run for President, you could not possibly hope to compete with the rich and powerful Democrat and Republican candidates in a national election. But in a handful of districts where you can focus your campaign, you might just have a chance. And if you can get 2 or 3 electoral votes, well, you just got catapulted to the national stage for the next election!

And that is different from our current system how? Maine and Nevada both have "District" electoral systems, where the statewide winner gets 2 electoral votes, and then it is based on each congressional district.

And that is different from our current system how? Maine and Nevada both have "District" electoral systems, where the statewide winner gets 2 electoral votes, and then it is based on each congressional district.

Nebraska. Not Nevada. The difference is that they are currently the only two states that do this.

Meh, one of the N states.

Forget about it. Any change to the electoral college would require a constitutional amendment, and those have to be approved by 2/3rds of the states. No changes to the system will ever be approved by the less populous states (about half of them) because nearly all proposals would strip them of power. The EC is here to stay.

As for making the US Electoral system more compatible with 3rd parties, remember this: The U.S. Constitution says that if no candidate gets 50% of the electoral votes, the House of Representatives gets to choose the President. If you get 4 or 5 strong candidates running in a modified electoral system that allows the votes to be divvies proportionally, the odds of that happening increase astronomically. If that happens, the elected President will ALWAYS be from whatever party happens to hold the majority in the House at that moment...even if they came in 3rd or 4th overall.

Is that REALLY the system you want?

And that is different from our current system how? Maine and Nevada both have "District" electoral systems, where the statewide winner gets 2 electoral votes, and then it is based on each congressional district.

The difference is that the other 48 states would do it too. It would greatly benefit third-parties.

I sure hope people don't put this on the back shelf simply because we had a legitimate election.
[SNIP]

I would combine your idea with increasing the house size to more accurately represent the population sizes of the states. The constitution sets the minimum at like 34,000 people per Rep, which would put us at a HoR size of like 2000. I wouldn't go that high, but we could use a doubling of the level now, as district division now is a bit absurd in some states.

The best system is where the % of the popular vote = how many seats you get.

So say there are 400 seats, every .25% = one seat in government, and they would organize where the seats go based on location that party did good in.

Forget about it. Any change to the electoral college would require a constitutional amendment, and those have to be approved by 2/3rds of the states. No changes to the system will ever be approved by the less populous states (about half of them) because nearly all proposals would strip them of power. The EC is here to stay.

As for making the US Electoral system more compatible with 3rd parties, remember this: The U.S. Constitution says that if no candidate gets 50% of the electoral votes, the House of Representatives gets to choose the President. If you get 4 or 5 strong candidates running in a modified electoral system that allows the votes to be divvies proportionally, the odds of that happening increase astronomically. If that happens, the elected President will ALWAYS be from whatever party happens to hold the majority in the House at that moment...even if they came in 3rd or 4th overall.

Is that REALLY the system you want?

Technically, it is up to the individual state as to how their electoral votes are doled out (Colorado was voting on just such a system as was proposed in the first post in this thread), so it would not need 2/3 majority of the states, just whatever the amendment to the individual states constitution process is. (For example, in Wisconsin you need 2/3 majority two terms in a row (2 votes 2 years apart) to get it to become a referendum vote on the next elections ballot (then voted on by the people and would need a simple majority to pass from there).

Forget about it. Any change to the electoral college would require a constitutional amendment, and those have to be approved by 2/3rds of the states. No changes to the system will ever be approved by the less populous states (about half of them) because nearly all proposals would strip them of power. The EC is here to stay.

As for making the US Electoral system more compatible with 3rd parties, remember this: The U.S. Constitution says that if no candidate gets 50% of the electoral votes, the House of Representatives gets to choose the President. If you get 4 or 5 strong candidates running in a modified electoral system that allows the votes to be divvies proportionally, the odds of that happening increase astronomically. If that happens, the elected President will ALWAYS be from whatever party happens to hold the majority in the House at that moment...even if they came in 3rd or 4th overall.

Is that REALLY the system you want?

Yep. :)

If a candidate can't win a majority of the nation, I think that one that can work well with congress would be acceptable.