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Perot's Presidential candidacy is a good example of why we need the Electoral College and cannot simply go with the "winner" of the popular vote. Clinton had 3

Perot's Presidential candidacy is a good example of why we need the Electoral College and cannot simply go with the "winner" of the popular vote. Clinton had 370 Electoral College votes, Bush had 168, and Perot had 0. Not only did Clinton win easily, he had a majority of ALL the Electoral College votes. In the popular vote, it was 44,909,889 for Clinton, 39,104,545 for Bush, and 19,743,821 for Perot. While Clinton still had the majority, more than half the votes cast for President were not for him -- in other words, the majority of voters did not want Clinton to be elected President. Some sort of system which uses "rounds" to narrow the field down to two candidates could work; but, it's hard enough to get people to vote once, much less several times.

m1n1 7y ago
Have people vote once by ranking candidates. Then the computer can do the rounds.
- agbell 7y ago
  yeah, a ranked ballot solves this problem. The concept of a condorcet winner, is that the winner would win head to head against all non-winners and various ranked ballot schemes pass this condorcet criterion.
omegaworks 7y ago
Abolish the electoral college, institute national ranked-choice.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  Or in a way that would be less constitutionally difficult do national ranked choice and proportional electoral college. Most of the benefit without, probably, having to change the constitution. To completely remove the electoral college you'd have to amend the constitution because the constitution spells that out as the method for choosing the president.
ambicapter 7y ago
France does two rounds, first round all the candidates, second round top 2.
jakamau 7y ago
I feel a bit like a broken record on this, but the topic deserves discussion. Electoral college is a valuable part of US elections but gerrymandering and winner-take-all states destroy the institutions usefulness. Alternative: 1. End "winner-take-all" allocations of electoral votes 2. Any party that gains the minimum population/electoral vote (Wyoming puts that at ~200k) in any state is guaranteed at least one electoral vote in that state 3. All remaining electoral votes are allocated proportionally based on general election votes 4. If no majority winner exists, the party with the least number of electoral votes casts their vote to other party/ies and this repeats until a winner obtains 270. If a rather obstinate third party refuses to proxy their votes, those votes are dropped when calculating majority. This should remove the spoiler effect, function within the current voting system, and off-set any perceived difficulty in rank voting to the actual parties. It would also provide a strong leverage point for third parties to have a say in government policies which is probably why it would never be adopted willingly.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  > 4. If no majority winner exists, the party with the least number of electoral votes casts their vote to other party/ies and this repeats until a winner obtains 270. If a rather obstinate third party refuses to proxy their votes, those votes are dropped when calculating majority. Why put this in the hands of the lowest vote getter when we can just ask the voters directly with ranked choice voting?
pfranz 7y ago
I'm very confused by your rationale. Many systems are fine with calling the plurality the winner--I don't see why the EC gives any more weight to the results. Other systems have runoffs instead. I think it's very unfortunate how high the bar is for third-party candidates to be competitive.
marzell 7y ago
I really don't understand your argument FOR the electoral college. Yes, more than half did not vote for Clinton, but there were more than 2 options. The majority still voted for Clinton, and he had a fairly large lead over the next place (44.9M vs 39.1M). In which way does this make a case for electoral college vs popular vote? In my estimation, the ONLY thing the electoral college vote is good for, is allowing for dishonest tactics like gerrymandering to impact the politics, propaganda, and ultimately the outcome of voting, while completely discarding what the majority of people vote for. I'm happy to be enlightened in this area if you have any other insights.

m1n1 7y ago

Have people vote once by ranking candidates. Then the computer can do the rounds.

agbell 7y ago
yeah, a ranked ballot solves this problem. The concept of a condorcet winner, is that the winner would win head to head against all non-winners and various ranked ballot schemes pass this condorcet criterion.

omegaworks 7y ago

Abolish the electoral college, institute national ranked-choice.

rtkwe 7y ago
Or in a way that would be less constitutionally difficult do national ranked choice and proportional electoral college. Most of the benefit without, probably, having to change the constitution. To completely remove the electoral college you'd have to amend the constitution because the constitution spells that out as the method for choosing the president.

ambicapter 7y ago

France does two rounds, first round all the candidates, second round top 2.

jakamau 7y ago

I feel a bit like a broken record on this, but the topic deserves discussion. Electoral college is a valuable part of US elections but gerrymandering and winner-take-all states destroy the institutions usefulness. Alternative: 1. End "winner-take-all" allocations of electoral votes 2. Any party that gains the minimum population/electoral vote (Wyoming puts that at ~200k) in any state is guaranteed at least one electoral vote in that state 3. All remaining electoral votes are allocated proportionally based on general election votes 4. If no majority winner exists, the party with the least number of electoral votes casts their vote to other party/ies and this repeats until a winner obtains 270. If a rather obstinate third party refuses to proxy their votes, those votes are dropped when calculating majority. This should remove the spoiler effect, function within the current voting system, and off-set any perceived difficulty in rank voting to the actual parties. It would also provide a strong leverage point for third parties to have a say in government policies which is probably why it would never be adopted willingly.

rtkwe 7y ago
> 4. If no majority winner exists, the party with the least number of electoral votes casts their vote to other party/ies and this repeats until a winner obtains 270. If a rather obstinate third party refuses to proxy their votes, those votes are dropped when calculating majority. Why put this in the hands of the lowest vote getter when we can just ask the voters directly with ranked choice voting?

pfranz 7y ago

I'm very confused by your rationale. Many systems are fine with calling the plurality the winner--I don't see why the EC gives any more weight to the results. Other systems have runoffs instead. I think it's very unfortunate how high the bar is for third-party candidates to be competitive.

marzell 7y ago

I really don't understand your argument FOR the electoral college. Yes, more than half did not vote for Clinton, but there were more than 2 options. The majority still voted for Clinton, and he had a fairly large lead over the next place (44.9M vs 39.1M). In which way does this make a case for electoral college vs popular vote? In my estimation, the ONLY thing the electoral college vote is good for, is allowing for dishonest tactics like gerrymandering to impact the politics, propaganda, and ultimately the outcome of voting, while completely discarding what the majority of people vote for. I'm happy to be enlightened in this area if you have any other insights.