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How to Fix the Electoral College

17 points by flopriore 2y ago

flopriore 2y ago
Hello, here is my proposal to improve the Electoral College. The basic idea is to allocate electors proportionally in each state with the Jefferson method (aka d'Hondt method) rather than using a "winner-take-all" system. What do you think about it? PS: I'm not from the US, so an American perspective on that would be extremely appreciated :)
- big-green-man 2y ago
  I think that it would be a way to get the US closer to popular vote aligning with the election result, and in a way that allows states to make the change themselves instead of requiring a constitutional amendment or somrthing. You'll never get exactly the same as the popular vote because you're rounding to integers, but it gets reliably close. More interestingly, this scheme reduces party power inside states, so the incentive is for each individual state not to want to do it even though on the whole it's better, and instead the current status quo is the stable configuration, so getting states to want to do this is basically impossible. Think about it: if every state did this, then one state said "nope, we are winner take all again" that state could decide elections. So this is a system that is easy to implement by states, requires no US constitution amendments or anything like that, but works in such a way that no state would for fear others wouldn't. Interesting game theory here, it's very similar to a tragedy of the commons. Alternatively, there's a proposed amendment to the US constitution called the equal apportionment amendment, that was passed 200 years ago but never ratified by the states, that changes the way the house of representatives is apportioned, such that among many other improvements, will change the way electors are apportioned in presidential elections. You don't need every state to ratify it because you only need 3/4ths of states to do so, many of which already have, it's binding on all so no worry about any one backing out, and you don't need congress to vote on it because they already did and voted yes centuries ago. It has other benefits too, like reducing the prevalence of 2 parties in the house and therefore elsewhere potentially, and increasing the fair distribution of representation in the house, which suffers from a similar problem as the electoral college.
  - flopriore 2y ago
    I believe you're right, even if all the states agreed to make a similar change, this "equilibrium" state would be unstable. It would require an amendment to the US constitution to make it stable and that would require a huge majority. Even if they decided to ament the constitution, you would still face another issue: now electoral system is written in the constitution, so it becomes even more difficult to change in the future. What do you think about the system adopted by Maine and Nebraska instead?
  - flopriore 2y ago
    >It has other benefits too, like reducing the prevalence of 2 parties in the house Could you elaborate further?
    - big-green-man 2y ago
      Yeah sure. So just for reference, here's a Wikipedia article about this amendment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_... You wind up with one representative for every 50,000 people, minimum. Currently, the number of representatives is decided by congress, and the districts are drawn up by them as well. So you've got districts with overrepresented constituents, just like states with the electoral college. It is capped at 435 currently. The parties of course collude to keep it this way, they agree to trade power when redistricting and stuff like that. With one representative per 50,000 minimum, you wind up with a house that would be, today, about 7000 members. And most of what they do can be passed by a simple majority. House representatives have to campaign directly to their constituents, having that few per means they have to get closer to what they want, which means that, as far as direct legislative representation goes, the pressure to run on overarching political football platforms wanes and the pressure to run on niche and local concerns dominates. With simple majority in the house for most things, that means you have to deliver on a lot more of those local concerns to get anything passed, because half of 7000 people is going to be hard to whip up for a vote on anything. So you may get some aligned groups caucusing together, you may get them nominally under the same umbrella, you'll get coalitions, all just like happens in Europe, but people will get more granular, close to home representation.
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  Would you implement such a thing for the EU leadership? Because the United States was meant to be more like that than it was a country like say France.
  - flopriore 2y ago
    In the EU there is already a similar system because, in the parliament, the number of MEPs is not really proportional to the population (Germany has 84,48 million inhabitants and 96 MEPs, so 1 every 880,000 people, while Malta has 553,000 people and 6 MEPs so 1 MEP every 92,000 people). The difference is MEPs are appointed proportionally within each state (so if a party gets 40% in a state, it will get ca. 40% of the state's MEPs)
- int_19h 2y ago
  Our problem isn't that there's a lack of ideas on how to reform. It's that said reform requires amending the constitution, which in US is contingent on 3/4 of states (specifically, their legislatures) ratifying the amendment. It is a very high bar in general, but is especially hard to break through when what you propose is virtually certain to change the balance of political power in the country.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    In this case isn't it up to states to decide how they select electors? So in sense, nothing stops any state from assigning them in some proportional manner. And one could even ask, if it is electors who decide why not get them campaign? Not voting for president, but voting for person who votes for president. Isn't that the intention of EC anyway?
    - int_19h 2y ago
      The states can assign them proportionally, but why would they? Again, when we say "the state", this really means state legislature. And, generally speaking, control of state legislature correlates pretty strongly with popular presidential vote in that state. So why would the party that controls the state, and which currently gets all of its electoral votes, effectively volunteer to surrender some of them to their political enemies? Now, if one party generally expects to win the national popular vote more often than not, it might sign up for such a scheme on the condition that other states do - this is what the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is. But, by the same token, it means that the other party would generally expect to lose the national popular vote, and thus would do the best it can to block such a proposal from going forward by preventing states under its control from joining (or by other means; e.g. North Dakota actually passed a law to block release of its popular vote data until after EC vote specifically to disrupt NPVIC). Thing is, nobody in position of power today actually cares what the "real intention" of EC is or ever was. The only thing that matters today is winning elections, and so a bipartisan agreement on any electoral reform that upsets the existing balance of power is extremely unlikely.
krunck 2y ago
We need to solve the problem where the system breaks when there are more than two parties: the "spoiler vote".[1] It is the single largest problem facing American democracy. Dump the electoral college system and start from scratch. Look to real democracies like Europe where they use ranked choice voting - also called instant runoff voting.[2] [1] https://fairvote.org/defining-the-spoiler-effect/ https://fairvote.org/defining-the-spoiler-effect/ [2] https://electionlab.mit.edu/research/instant-runoff-voting https://electionlab.mit.edu/research/instant-runoff-voting
- flopriore 2y ago
  Yeah, spoiler vote brings to 2 parties (like the US). Although the current electoral college doesn't work well, I'm not sure the Americans would prefer to remove it completely and rather use directly popular vote because in the rural areas they don't want to be "governed" by the decisions of big cities. What do you think about keeping the electoral college and use IRV instead?
  - elcritch 2y ago
    > Although the current electoral college doesn't work well, I'm not sure the Americans would prefer to remove it completely I think the electoral college is working as intended to balance out power between larger more powerful states and less powerful states. Though I also don’t believe the popular vote is necessarily ideal from the perspective of maintaining more diversity of thoughts and opinions which is useful for a healthy republic. As someone who’s lived in mostly rural states I’m glad because it prevents places like California with large populations with pretty homogeneous opinions and world views to dominate the nations elections. I get folks in those larger states would also feel equally left out as well. I view the electoral college as a means of accounting for the “entropy” of votes among states. There’s more diversity of thought and opinion between say a rural Wyoming farmer and a worker in Hawaii than there is among most Californians living in say the 50 square miles of Hollywood. In a fashion it’s similar to how network effects dominate large in markets where companies lucky to get a market first or to grow first get an unfair network advantage. Antitrust and tax laws ideally gently balance out this winner-takes-effects to provide more diverse and robust markets. Most hyper successful companies aren’t necessarily better at what they do and there’s a large amount of luck in success. Of course they still have to work hard and be effective to capitalize on the opportunities. Similar things happen among states in the USA.
litoE 2y ago
Another approach that is in the works is the so-called States Compact whereby each state would assign all its electors to the candidate that gets the most votes nationwide. This has the advantage that no change to the Constitution is needed. Currently, several States have agreed to this, and the Compact will be activated once enough States sign on that provide more than the 270 electoral votes required to win the election.
- big-green-man 2y ago
  It would require a modification to the constitution, Article 1 Section 10 Clause 3 prohibits the states from entering into any compact with one another without the consent of congress. Congress could consent to it, which would bypass the amendment requirements, but I doubt they would as it takes federal power away.
  - krapp 2y ago
    I don't know if it would. At least according to the Wikipedia article on state compacts[0] and the entire article on the constitutionality of this specific compact[1] SCOTUS has already ruled that explicit consent isn't always necessary (it can even just be inferred,) and there seems to be some room for debate. Of course it doesn't really matter. The Constitution means whatever you can bribe the Supreme Court to say it means. God Bless America. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_compact [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutionality_of_the_National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutionality_of_the_Natio...
  - analog31 2y ago
    The main problem is that it takes power away from one party.
    - big-green-man 2y ago
      Yes, and as of today that party would be the one youre (probably) not thinking of.
readthenotes1 2y ago
Although we are often taught that it is slavery slavery slavery, the electoral college is also an attempt to prevent the tyranny of the majority - something the founding fathers were worried about. It is also easy to forget that we are called the United States for a reason. We were more like the EU than we are like France...
- superfrank 2y ago
  Is it? I'm no history buff, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the main way the founders attempted to avoid the tyranny of the majority was by having the Senate be two representatives per state regardless of size.
  - flopriore 2y ago
    Yes, it's easier to show with an example. - California has 38,940,231 inhabitants and 54 electors. That means 1 elector every 721,115 inhabitants - Oklahoma has 4,053,824 inhabitants and 7 electors, so 1 elector every 579,117 people.
- int_19h 2y ago
  Giving some people more votes than others "prevents" tyranny of the majority by substituting it with tyranny of the minority. And the Founders had far more nuanced opinions on this subject than modern right-wing politics tends to imply. Consider Federalist Papers #22: "The right of equal suffrage among the States is another exceptionable part of the Confederation. Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Deleware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America3; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third. The larger States would after a while revolt from the idea of receiving the law from the smaller. To acquiesce in such a privation of their due importance in the political scale, would be not merely to be insensible to the love of power, but even to sacrifice the desire of equality. It is neither rational to expect the first, nor just to require the last. The smaller States, considering how peculiarly their safety and welfare depend on union, ought readily to renounce a pretension which, if not relinquished, would prove fatal to its duration."
fabiofzero 2y ago
Just get rid of it. Either go full on popular vote like everyone else with a president or go parlamentarian like everyone else with a prime minister. This system isn't truly democratic and should be abolished yesterday.
- ToDougie 2y ago
  It isn't supposed to be "truly democratic".
  - sapphicsnail 2y ago
    But it should be and we can change it
tunesmith 2y ago
I wish these sorts of suggestions were less on the end of "here's what would be better" and more on the end of "here's how it would be possible". Anything that requires a magic wand to enact is a bit of a waste of energy. Would love to see more actual action plans on how to enact the change though.
- flopriore 2y ago
  As stated in other comments, it would be actually easy to implement as it doesn't require a change in the constitution. Anyway, as I told in another comment, I'm not from the US, so my intention wasn't really to say how to implement the proposal. I just had this idea and wrote it down in a blog post.
  - tunesmith 2y ago
    How would you ensure that all fifty states adopt this approach at the same time?
    - flopriore 2y ago
      Yours is a very good point of view actually. I initially hadn't thought about the tragedy of the commons situation where all the states agree to implement it and later one state decides to go back to winner take all system. big-green-man wrote a good comment about that
  - xnx 2y ago
    > it would be actually easy to implement If it is easy, why hasn't it been done. Do you think that no one considered this approach?
    - flopriore 2y ago
      Ok yes maybe "easy" isn't exactly the correct term, but the way to appoint electors in each state doesn't need a 2/3 majority in every house + 3/4 of the states as it happens with Constitutional amendaments. So it's definitely an easier approach
jmclnx 2y ago
Depending who is in office, one party will never go for this. The reason is states like California and maybe Florida/Texas will never allow this, it removes their advantage in the current electoral collage. Also it does not fix the population skewing for smaller states. Per voter, Wyoming voters have more power that people in Calif and Texas. The better options is this, which will bring back the original intent of the US Constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule or the States Compact Option suggested by litoE above.
- flopriore 2y ago
  Makes sense
bwanab 2y ago
Historically the electoral college was a compromise that allowed for the counting of slaves as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of taxation and voting without having them vote. Consider a state like South Carolina which at the time had about 50% of its population as black. How could the 3/5 of the 50% of the people get added to the total otherwise? Any method would be a hack, but this one had the benefit of being able to create a justification that it protected small states from being dominated by large states. If you're American living in one of the majority of states that aren't "swing" states, I don't think you can escape the feeling when you vote for president that you're going through a kind of charade since the winner is going to be determined by some small number of voters in 6 states.
- 627467 2y ago
  > If you're American living in one of the majority of states that aren't "swing" states, I don't think you can escape the feeling when you vote for president that you're going through a kind of charade since the winner is going to be determined by some small number of voters in 6 states. I don't get the repeating of this perspective, didn't he win the popular vote this time? How did "small number of voters in 6 states" affect this reality? Isn't winning the electoral college but not the popular vote a statistical minor occurrence? People don't know how to lose.
  - bwanab 2y ago
    I'm not making any statement about any particular election. This statement is just as true for a conservative voter in Massachusetts as it is for a liberal voter in Tennessee.
  - xnx 2y ago
    > People don't know how to lose. Completely agree. So much "stop the steal", fake electors" and storm the capitol nonsense.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - maxerickson 2y ago
Empact 2y ago
There are a few concerns about the electoral college, but I don’t consider it broken in any meaningful sense. After all, the Constitution has survived over 200 years with it in place, which makes it the longest-serving constitution in force today. We cannot say for sure that it would have survived so long under any proposed alternative. The first issue I would aim to address is the variance in voting power from district to district. In Wyoming, voters have a significantly lower constituent to elector ratio, ie greater voting power, than those in e.g. California. This issue is a recent development due to the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, which fixed the number of reps in the House. As the population has grown, the distance between the average population vs the minimum population of a district has increased. The remedy is to simply uncap the size of the house and increase the number of representatives. This would quantize the population over a greater number of electors thus reducing the remainder, resulting in relatively more equivalent voter power. As an added benefit, it would increase the amount of access each voter has to their Representative in the House, and make it practically more difficult to corrupt a majority of the House members. https://www.reddit.com/r/UncapTheHouse/comments/lklp4h/the_uncap_the_house_starter_guide/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UncapTheHouse/comments/lklp4h/the_u... https://thirty-thousand.org/ https://thirty-thousand.org/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/435-representatives/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/435-representatives/
- vsNicholas 2y ago
  From what I understand, the Permanent Apportionment Act can be adjusted or removed as result of a law being passed which would make it a really promising option. Access to representatives and durability against corruption also feel like they could be really compelling issues to voters. The strongest response I have received to this suggestion is something like a fear about having more paid politicians. I don't see an increase in the number of legislators as the same as an increase in executive branch bureaucrats. I think part of the issue that does come to mind is how we fit twice as many reps in the capitol. I like the idea of having to adjust the size and arrangement of our legislative chamber. I also like the idea of addressing housing challenges; maybe its time to bring back the legislator bunkhouses. It becomes the reason to review and revise the existing standards for offices, housing, and even the culture of the house or representatives.
exabrial 2y ago
Lived through clinton, bush, obama, trump, biden, and now trump again. I've voted for three parties in my lifetime. I oppose any change to the electoral college, including interstate collusion agreements. The people I see get upset with it are hardcore Dem and Rep, depending on the year, who blame the failure to get elected on anyone except themselves.
- 627467 2y ago
  Exactly, it's always the sore losers who complain about this. There's are good reasons to keep the system as it is, regardless of who wins. But the discussion is always driven by losers.
  - xnx 2y ago
    > There's are good reasons to keep the system as it is, I've read some of the reasons, but none sound good to me. What do you like about the electoral college?
    - fsckboy 2y ago
      the electoral college was a compromise made a long time ago that has two facets: the indirect nature of voting for representatives who vote for us (that was necessitated by preindustrial communication and transportation systems) and some extra weight given to smaller states to get them to agree to come into the union. That was the deal, no takesy-backsies. It is not going to change because those states that are disadvantaged by the change will not agree to it, so we are discussing it here for fun, not for profit. And if you think the advantage those states have is so overwhelmingly good, you are free to move to one of them, they are not exclusive clubs or oligarchies, they are open democracies themselves. A major side benefit we get from the electoral college is, our elections get fought out in a small number of places which is an economically efficient way to do it. It is not the case that we are ignoring the voters of the other places, we are simply precounting them into their respective columns. If those places swung to more left-right balance, they could add themselves to the list of places fought over, and I guarantee that would make none of those people happy because elections, like making sausage, is ugly business. Remember, if enough people move from California to Rhode Island, it is Rhode Island that will be complaining that California is getting a free ride in the electoral college...
moomin 2y ago
James Madison wrote: There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections. They have been trying to reform the electoral college for as long as there has been an electoral college, and all attempts have foundered for the simple reason that those that benefit from the power it gives them will block attempts at reform. In any event, in this election the point is moot.
- Empact 2y ago
  The context: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0065 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-006...
Molitor5901 2y ago
I still can't support changing the electoral college. A few cities deciding the election for everyone feels horribly unfair, and undemocratic. Maybe the EC isn't perfect, but it certainly forces politicians to at least care what people in Iowa, Vermont, and Nevada have to say. It works because of the state system.
- krapp 2y ago
  >I still can't support changing the electoral college. A few cities deciding the election for everyone feels horribly unfair, and undemocratic. ... unless those cities are in Iowa, Vermont, and Nevada, in which case you're fine with it? I mean, the EC is so unfair and undemocratic that Presidential candidates avoid states entirely where the political calculus says they simply won't matter. And it's ridiculous to assume that when a candidate does show up in a diner in Iowa to order whatever meal their campaign staff says will most appeal to the locals, work on an assembly line, or whatever, that they actually care about anything those voters have to say. They don't have to care about the voters, they just have to care about the numbers. Remove the EC and the voters actually matter.
- atmavatar 2y ago
  Could you elaborate why it's more fair and democratic for a candidate losing the popular vote to win an election (e.g., 2000 and 2016)? Additionally, why is it more fair for a voter in Wyoming to have 3x the electoral impact of a voter in California? The latter is a particular problem borne from the fact that we've capped the size of the House at 435 in 1929, thus giving increasingly disproportionate power to low-population states in both the House and Electoral College as the difference in population between states continues to grow. > but it certainly forces politicians to at least care what people in Iowa, Vermont, and Nevada have to say. The problem is that it disincentivizes politicians to care about what people in deep blue or deep red states have to say, and there are many more of those than there are swing states. Both Democrat and Republican presidential candidates should have to campaign in all 50 states rather than a single-digit number of potential swing states.
  - valval 2y ago
RickJWagner 2y ago
Alternate title: How to let Big States bully Small States. Bad idea.

17 points by flopriore 2y ago

Hello, here is my proposal to improve the Electoral College. The basic idea is to allocate electors proportionally in each state with the Jefferson method (aka d'Hondt method) rather than using a "winner-take-all" system. What do you think about it? PS: I'm not from the US, so an American perspective on that would be extremely appreciated :)

big-green-man 2y ago
I think that it would be a way to get the US closer to popular vote aligning with the election result, and in a way that allows states to make the change themselves instead of requiring a constitutional amendment or somrthing. You'll never get exactly the same as the popular vote because you're rounding to integers, but it gets reliably close. More interestingly, this scheme reduces party power inside states, so the incentive is for each individual state not to want to do it even though on the whole it's better, and instead the current status quo is the stable configuration, so getting states to want to do this is basically impossible. Think about it: if every state did this, then one state said "nope, we are winner take all again" that state could decide elections. So this is a system that is easy to implement by states, requires no US constitution amendments or anything like that, but works in such a way that no state would for fear others wouldn't. Interesting game theory here, it's very similar to a tragedy of the commons. Alternatively, there's a proposed amendment to the US constitution called the equal apportionment amendment, that was passed 200 years ago but never ratified by the states, that changes the way the house of representatives is apportioned, such that among many other improvements, will change the way electors are apportioned in presidential elections. You don't need every state to ratify it because you only need 3/4ths of states to do so, many of which already have, it's binding on all so no worry about any one backing out, and you don't need congress to vote on it because they already did and voted yes centuries ago. It has other benefits too, like reducing the prevalence of 2 parties in the house and therefore elsewhere potentially, and increasing the fair distribution of representation in the house, which suffers from a similar problem as the electoral college.
- flopriore 2y ago
  I believe you're right, even if all the states agreed to make a similar change, this "equilibrium" state would be unstable. It would require an amendment to the US constitution to make it stable and that would require a huge majority. Even if they decided to ament the constitution, you would still face another issue: now electoral system is written in the constitution, so it becomes even more difficult to change in the future. What do you think about the system adopted by Maine and Nebraska instead?
- flopriore 2y ago
  >It has other benefits too, like reducing the prevalence of 2 parties in the house Could you elaborate further?
  - big-green-man 2y ago
    Yeah sure. So just for reference, here's a Wikipedia article about this amendment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_... You wind up with one representative for every 50,000 people, minimum. Currently, the number of representatives is decided by congress, and the districts are drawn up by them as well. So you've got districts with overrepresented constituents, just like states with the electoral college. It is capped at 435 currently. The parties of course collude to keep it this way, they agree to trade power when redistricting and stuff like that. With one representative per 50,000 minimum, you wind up with a house that would be, today, about 7000 members. And most of what they do can be passed by a simple majority. House representatives have to campaign directly to their constituents, having that few per means they have to get closer to what they want, which means that, as far as direct legislative representation goes, the pressure to run on overarching political football platforms wanes and the pressure to run on niche and local concerns dominates. With simple majority in the house for most things, that means you have to deliver on a lot more of those local concerns to get anything passed, because half of 7000 people is going to be hard to whip up for a vote on anything. So you may get some aligned groups caucusing together, you may get them nominally under the same umbrella, you'll get coalitions, all just like happens in Europe, but people will get more granular, close to home representation.
readthenotes1 2y ago
Would you implement such a thing for the EU leadership? Because the United States was meant to be more like that than it was a country like say France.
- flopriore 2y ago
  In the EU there is already a similar system because, in the parliament, the number of MEPs is not really proportional to the population (Germany has 84,48 million inhabitants and 96 MEPs, so 1 every 880,000 people, while Malta has 553,000 people and 6 MEPs so 1 MEP every 92,000 people). The difference is MEPs are appointed proportionally within each state (so if a party gets 40% in a state, it will get ca. 40% of the state's MEPs)
int_19h 2y ago
Our problem isn't that there's a lack of ideas on how to reform. It's that said reform requires amending the constitution, which in US is contingent on 3/4 of states (specifically, their legislatures) ratifying the amendment. It is a very high bar in general, but is especially hard to break through when what you propose is virtually certain to change the balance of political power in the country.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  In this case isn't it up to states to decide how they select electors? So in sense, nothing stops any state from assigning them in some proportional manner. And one could even ask, if it is electors who decide why not get them campaign? Not voting for president, but voting for person who votes for president. Isn't that the intention of EC anyway?
  - int_19h 2y ago
    The states can assign them proportionally, but why would they? Again, when we say "the state", this really means state legislature. And, generally speaking, control of state legislature correlates pretty strongly with popular presidential vote in that state. So why would the party that controls the state, and which currently gets all of its electoral votes, effectively volunteer to surrender some of them to their political enemies? Now, if one party generally expects to win the national popular vote more often than not, it might sign up for such a scheme on the condition that other states do - this is what the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is. But, by the same token, it means that the other party would generally expect to lose the national popular vote, and thus would do the best it can to block such a proposal from going forward by preventing states under its control from joining (or by other means; e.g. North Dakota actually passed a law to block release of its popular vote data until after EC vote specifically to disrupt NPVIC). Thing is, nobody in position of power today actually cares what the "real intention" of EC is or ever was. The only thing that matters today is winning elections, and so a bipartisan agreement on any electoral reform that upsets the existing balance of power is extremely unlikely.

krunck 2y ago

We need to solve the problem where the system breaks when there are more than two parties: the "spoiler vote".[1] It is the single largest problem facing American democracy. Dump the electoral college system and start from scratch. Look to real democracies like Europe where they use ranked choice voting - also called instant runoff voting.[2] [1] https://fairvote.org/defining-the-spoiler-effect/ https://fairvote.org/defining-the-spoiler-effect/ [2] https://electionlab.mit.edu/research/instant-runoff-voting https://electionlab.mit.edu/research/instant-runoff-voting

flopriore 2y ago
Yeah, spoiler vote brings to 2 parties (like the US). Although the current electoral college doesn't work well, I'm not sure the Americans would prefer to remove it completely and rather use directly popular vote because in the rural areas they don't want to be "governed" by the decisions of big cities. What do you think about keeping the electoral college and use IRV instead?
- elcritch 2y ago
  > Although the current electoral college doesn't work well, I'm not sure the Americans would prefer to remove it completely I think the electoral college is working as intended to balance out power between larger more powerful states and less powerful states. Though I also don’t believe the popular vote is necessarily ideal from the perspective of maintaining more diversity of thoughts and opinions which is useful for a healthy republic. As someone who’s lived in mostly rural states I’m glad because it prevents places like California with large populations with pretty homogeneous opinions and world views to dominate the nations elections. I get folks in those larger states would also feel equally left out as well. I view the electoral college as a means of accounting for the “entropy” of votes among states. There’s more diversity of thought and opinion between say a rural Wyoming farmer and a worker in Hawaii than there is among most Californians living in say the 50 square miles of Hollywood. In a fashion it’s similar to how network effects dominate large in markets where companies lucky to get a market first or to grow first get an unfair network advantage. Antitrust and tax laws ideally gently balance out this winner-takes-effects to provide more diverse and robust markets. Most hyper successful companies aren’t necessarily better at what they do and there’s a large amount of luck in success. Of course they still have to work hard and be effective to capitalize on the opportunities. Similar things happen among states in the USA.

litoE 2y ago

Another approach that is in the works is the so-called States Compact whereby each state would assign all its electors to the candidate that gets the most votes nationwide. This has the advantage that no change to the Constitution is needed. Currently, several States have agreed to this, and the Compact will be activated once enough States sign on that provide more than the 270 electoral votes required to win the election.

big-green-man 2y ago
It would require a modification to the constitution, Article 1 Section 10 Clause 3 prohibits the states from entering into any compact with one another without the consent of congress. Congress could consent to it, which would bypass the amendment requirements, but I doubt they would as it takes federal power away.
- krapp 2y ago
  I don't know if it would. At least according to the Wikipedia article on state compacts[0] and the entire article on the constitutionality of this specific compact[1] SCOTUS has already ruled that explicit consent isn't always necessary (it can even just be inferred,) and there seems to be some room for debate. Of course it doesn't really matter. The Constitution means whatever you can bribe the Supreme Court to say it means. God Bless America. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_compact [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutionality_of_the_National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutionality_of_the_Natio...
- analog31 2y ago
  The main problem is that it takes power away from one party.
  - big-green-man 2y ago
    Yes, and as of today that party would be the one youre (probably) not thinking of.

readthenotes1 2y ago

Although we are often taught that it is slavery slavery slavery, the electoral college is also an attempt to prevent the tyranny of the majority - something the founding fathers were worried about. It is also easy to forget that we are called the United States for a reason. We were more like the EU than we are like France...

superfrank 2y ago
Is it? I'm no history buff, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the main way the founders attempted to avoid the tyranny of the majority was by having the Senate be two representatives per state regardless of size.
- flopriore 2y ago
  Yes, it's easier to show with an example. - California has 38,940,231 inhabitants and 54 electors. That means 1 elector every 721,115 inhabitants - Oklahoma has 4,053,824 inhabitants and 7 electors, so 1 elector every 579,117 people.
int_19h 2y ago
Giving some people more votes than others "prevents" tyranny of the majority by substituting it with tyranny of the minority. And the Founders had far more nuanced opinions on this subject than modern right-wing politics tends to imply. Consider Federalist Papers #22: "The right of equal suffrage among the States is another exceptionable part of the Confederation. Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Deleware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America3; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third. The larger States would after a while revolt from the idea of receiving the law from the smaller. To acquiesce in such a privation of their due importance in the political scale, would be not merely to be insensible to the love of power, but even to sacrifice the desire of equality. It is neither rational to expect the first, nor just to require the last. The smaller States, considering how peculiarly their safety and welfare depend on union, ought readily to renounce a pretension which, if not relinquished, would prove fatal to its duration."

fabiofzero 2y ago

Just get rid of it. Either go full on popular vote like everyone else with a president or go parlamentarian like everyone else with a prime minister. This system isn't truly democratic and should be abolished yesterday.

ToDougie 2y ago
It isn't supposed to be "truly democratic".
- sapphicsnail 2y ago
  But it should be and we can change it

tunesmith 2y ago

I wish these sorts of suggestions were less on the end of "here's what would be better" and more on the end of "here's how it would be possible". Anything that requires a magic wand to enact is a bit of a waste of energy. Would love to see more actual action plans on how to enact the change though.

flopriore 2y ago
As stated in other comments, it would be actually easy to implement as it doesn't require a change in the constitution. Anyway, as I told in another comment, I'm not from the US, so my intention wasn't really to say how to implement the proposal. I just had this idea and wrote it down in a blog post.
- tunesmith 2y ago
  How would you ensure that all fifty states adopt this approach at the same time?
  - flopriore 2y ago
    Yours is a very good point of view actually. I initially hadn't thought about the tragedy of the commons situation where all the states agree to implement it and later one state decides to go back to winner take all system. big-green-man wrote a good comment about that
- xnx 2y ago
  > it would be actually easy to implement If it is easy, why hasn't it been done. Do you think that no one considered this approach?
  - flopriore 2y ago
    Ok yes maybe "easy" isn't exactly the correct term, but the way to appoint electors in each state doesn't need a 2/3 majority in every house + 3/4 of the states as it happens with Constitutional amendaments. So it's definitely an easier approach

jmclnx 2y ago

Depending who is in office, one party will never go for this. The reason is states like California and maybe Florida/Texas will never allow this, it removes their advantage in the current electoral collage. Also it does not fix the population skewing for smaller states. Per voter, Wyoming voters have more power that people in Calif and Texas. The better options is this, which will bring back the original intent of the US Constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule or the States Compact Option suggested by litoE above.

flopriore 2y ago
Makes sense

bwanab 2y ago

Historically the electoral college was a compromise that allowed for the counting of slaves as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of taxation and voting without having them vote. Consider a state like South Carolina which at the time had about 50% of its population as black. How could the 3/5 of the 50% of the people get added to the total otherwise? Any method would be a hack, but this one had the benefit of being able to create a justification that it protected small states from being dominated by large states. If you're American living in one of the majority of states that aren't "swing" states, I don't think you can escape the feeling when you vote for president that you're going through a kind of charade since the winner is going to be determined by some small number of voters in 6 states.

627467 2y ago
> If you're American living in one of the majority of states that aren't "swing" states, I don't think you can escape the feeling when you vote for president that you're going through a kind of charade since the winner is going to be determined by some small number of voters in 6 states. I don't get the repeating of this perspective, didn't he win the popular vote this time? How did "small number of voters in 6 states" affect this reality? Isn't winning the electoral college but not the popular vote a statistical minor occurrence? People don't know how to lose.
- bwanab 2y ago
  I'm not making any statement about any particular election. This statement is just as true for a conservative voter in Massachusetts as it is for a liberal voter in Tennessee.
- xnx 2y ago
  > People don't know how to lose. Completely agree. So much "stop the steal", fake electors" and storm the capitol nonsense.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- maxerickson 2y ago

Empact 2y ago

There are a few concerns about the electoral college, but I don’t consider it broken in any meaningful sense. After all, the Constitution has survived over 200 years with it in place, which makes it the longest-serving constitution in force today. We cannot say for sure that it would have survived so long under any proposed alternative. The first issue I would aim to address is the variance in voting power from district to district. In Wyoming, voters have a significantly lower constituent to elector ratio, ie greater voting power, than those in e.g. California. This issue is a recent development due to the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, which fixed the number of reps in the House. As the population has grown, the distance between the average population vs the minimum population of a district has increased. The remedy is to simply uncap the size of the house and increase the number of representatives. This would quantize the population over a greater number of electors thus reducing the remainder, resulting in relatively more equivalent voter power. As an added benefit, it would increase the amount of access each voter has to their Representative in the House, and make it practically more difficult to corrupt a majority of the House members. https://www.reddit.com/r/UncapTheHouse/comments/lklp4h/the_uncap_the_house_starter_guide/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UncapTheHouse/comments/lklp4h/the_u... https://thirty-thousand.org/ https://thirty-thousand.org/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/435-representatives/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/435-representatives/

vsNicholas 2y ago
From what I understand, the Permanent Apportionment Act can be adjusted or removed as result of a law being passed which would make it a really promising option. Access to representatives and durability against corruption also feel like they could be really compelling issues to voters. The strongest response I have received to this suggestion is something like a fear about having more paid politicians. I don't see an increase in the number of legislators as the same as an increase in executive branch bureaucrats. I think part of the issue that does come to mind is how we fit twice as many reps in the capitol. I like the idea of having to adjust the size and arrangement of our legislative chamber. I also like the idea of addressing housing challenges; maybe its time to bring back the legislator bunkhouses. It becomes the reason to review and revise the existing standards for offices, housing, and even the culture of the house or representatives.

exabrial 2y ago

Lived through clinton, bush, obama, trump, biden, and now trump again. I've voted for three parties in my lifetime. I oppose any change to the electoral college, including interstate collusion agreements. The people I see get upset with it are hardcore Dem and Rep, depending on the year, who blame the failure to get elected on anyone except themselves.

627467 2y ago
Exactly, it's always the sore losers who complain about this. There's are good reasons to keep the system as it is, regardless of who wins. But the discussion is always driven by losers.
- xnx 2y ago
  > There's are good reasons to keep the system as it is, I've read some of the reasons, but none sound good to me. What do you like about the electoral college?
  - fsckboy 2y ago
    the electoral college was a compromise made a long time ago that has two facets: the indirect nature of voting for representatives who vote for us (that was necessitated by preindustrial communication and transportation systems) and some extra weight given to smaller states to get them to agree to come into the union. That was the deal, no takesy-backsies. It is not going to change because those states that are disadvantaged by the change will not agree to it, so we are discussing it here for fun, not for profit. And if you think the advantage those states have is so overwhelmingly good, you are free to move to one of them, they are not exclusive clubs or oligarchies, they are open democracies themselves. A major side benefit we get from the electoral college is, our elections get fought out in a small number of places which is an economically efficient way to do it. It is not the case that we are ignoring the voters of the other places, we are simply precounting them into their respective columns. If those places swung to more left-right balance, they could add themselves to the list of places fought over, and I guarantee that would make none of those people happy because elections, like making sausage, is ugly business. Remember, if enough people move from California to Rhode Island, it is Rhode Island that will be complaining that California is getting a free ride in the electoral college...

moomin 2y ago

James Madison wrote: There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections. They have been trying to reform the electoral college for as long as there has been an electoral college, and all attempts have foundered for the simple reason that those that benefit from the power it gives them will block attempts at reform. In any event, in this election the point is moot.

Empact 2y ago
The context: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0065 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-006...

Molitor5901 2y ago

I still can't support changing the electoral college. A few cities deciding the election for everyone feels horribly unfair, and undemocratic. Maybe the EC isn't perfect, but it certainly forces politicians to at least care what people in Iowa, Vermont, and Nevada have to say. It works because of the state system.

krapp 2y ago
>I still can't support changing the electoral college. A few cities deciding the election for everyone feels horribly unfair, and undemocratic. ... unless those cities are in Iowa, Vermont, and Nevada, in which case you're fine with it? I mean, the EC is so unfair and undemocratic that Presidential candidates avoid states entirely where the political calculus says they simply won't matter. And it's ridiculous to assume that when a candidate does show up in a diner in Iowa to order whatever meal their campaign staff says will most appeal to the locals, work on an assembly line, or whatever, that they actually care about anything those voters have to say. They don't have to care about the voters, they just have to care about the numbers. Remove the EC and the voters actually matter.
atmavatar 2y ago
Could you elaborate why it's more fair and democratic for a candidate losing the popular vote to win an election (e.g., 2000 and 2016)? Additionally, why is it more fair for a voter in Wyoming to have 3x the electoral impact of a voter in California? The latter is a particular problem borne from the fact that we've capped the size of the House at 435 in 1929, thus giving increasingly disproportionate power to low-population states in both the House and Electoral College as the difference in population between states continues to grow. > but it certainly forces politicians to at least care what people in Iowa, Vermont, and Nevada have to say. The problem is that it disincentivizes politicians to care about what people in deep blue or deep red states have to say, and there are many more of those than there are swing states. Both Democrat and Republican presidential candidates should have to campaign in all 50 states rather than a single-digit number of potential swing states.
- valval 2y ago

RickJWagner 2y ago

Alternate title: How to let Big States bully Small States. Bad idea.