Thoughts on the Electoral College

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

When the Constitution took effect at the end of the 18th century, there were 26 Senators and 65 Representatives. That gave us 91 Electors. I understand that the House and Senate idea was originally planned as a way to balance the interests of the voters with the interests of the states.

About 90 years ago the number of Reps in the House was frozen at 435. Therefore, the number of Electors was also frozen. To make the elections more even, how about a new formula for determining the number of Electors?

My suggestion: # of Electors for your state = (Population of your state / population of Wyoming) + 2

For example California: (39,512,223 / 578,759) + 2 = 68.27 + 2
California gains 15 electors from the current 55 to be 70.

I'm also a fan of proportioning the Electoral votes according to the ratio of the popular vote.

So, in the case of California, if all 39,512,223 people actually voted and 564,460 folks alternated huffing glue on even numbered days and shooting heroin on the odd numbered days from now until 3 November and voted for trump then trump gets 1 electoral vote.

Opinions?

[RicROC]

1. yes, I agree...

IF we are unable to totally eliminate the Electoral College.

Also, your recalculation of the # of Representatives should be on the front burner of the new Congress.

[c-rational]

2. Agreed also, especially about it being on the front burner; and when we win in November, strick

while the iron is hot.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

5. Thanks for making the point about EC reform being a priority.

I think reform would be more acceptable than eliminating the system. I also would prefer to remain as close as possible to the intents of the Founders. There is a lot legal infrastructure that has evolved from the existing systems in terms of functions, precedents and political procedure.

Considering plans for the EC, my suggestion is to divorce it from the size of Congress. There is precedent for that since DC has 3 Electors but no actual votes in the House or Senate. I'm sure proposals for changing the size of the House have interesting and useful merits of their own which deserve consideration without being bound to the EC. The original plan in the Constitution called for a Representative to have not more than 30,000 constituents. There was an Amendment that was never ratified that provided for changing the size of the House. It does make sense to me that the number of Representatives is determined by Congress. It should also be determined by Congress what size that should be. The apportionment methods described on the Census website all depend on the number of seats being predetermined. Keeping the 30,000 constituent ratio expressed in the Constitution would require the size of the House to be around 11,000 today.

It is a better direction to consider the disparity in state populations and provide a means to balance the impact of state populations against the ideal that the Federal Government act as a means to unify the states directly and the people indirectly. Since our founding there has been a slow erosion of state power and authority that has been taken up by national politicians. The population of California is closing in on 40,000,000 and is more than 10% of the total US. Wyoming is now less than 600,000.

It goes without saying that everyone know their Congresspersons. Since these folks are to give voices in DC to the priorities and desires of their constituents, making that relationship possible needs to be a requirement of our system. No such relationship is needed for the EC members. Discounting faithless Electors, their allegiance is to the popular voting of their state or, in the cases of Nebraska and Maine for some Electors, a proportion thereof. I conclude there is neither need of nor precedent for contact between the EC members and voters aside from aggregate voting results. The connection between the number of EC members and Congresspersons, however convenient, isn't required.

[zipplewrath]

3. It'll take an amendment

I'm dubious the smaller states will support it.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

6. A motivated and capable constituency is not above a heavy lift.

[zipplewrath]

12. Just name the states

I'll help. Here are the states that aren't going to be interested in watering down their 3 EC votes.

Kansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming. The states with 4 votes probably won't be all that interested either.

So you have 21 states that aren't all that interested and you need 33 to pass it. And truthfully, there are probably only 3 states in any real position to gain much. You'd have to roughly triple the number that California has, and that means getting 100 EC votes from somewhere. By the time you balance TX and FL, most of the rest of the states are going to be having 1 EC vote.

Little known reality. something like 25% of the nation lives either between DC and Boston, or San Diego to Malibu. 70% of the nation lives withing 75 miles of the coasts. In a popular vote, the whole race will be in very concentrated metropolitan areas.

[sl8]

13. Most of the states you listed have more than 3 EC votes.

Kansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island all have more than 3 electoral college votes.

Also, some of those states are signatories to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), so I'd expect they'd be open to a consitutional amendment abolishing or fixing the EC.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

14. The changes I'm proposing:

Add 129 members to the Electoral College to be split among 41 states. That would mean 667 Electors in total.
California adds 15, Texas adds 14, Florida adds 10, NY adds 7, PA IL OH GA VA AR each add 4...
DC and 9 states remain unchanged.
End the requirement for states to have an Elector for each Congressperson.

From your reply it seemed that there was some misunderstanding.

[Upthevibe]

4. discntnt_irny_srcsm-The Electorial College...

is something I'm very, very interested in seeing if there's anything that can be done to do something about this. I've bookmarked your post to read when I'm not half asleep. Thank you for the post.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

8. Good to hear that you're interested

Looking forward to your thoughts.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

15. Any thoughts yet?

Have nice evening.

[marie999]

7. Right now in all states the Electoral Collage is picked by the winning party.

The legislature of that state picks the Electoral Collage but only from the list that the winning party gives them. But they don't have to do that unless it is the law in their state. If it isn't the law then they can choose anyone they want. It would not matter if Biden got every vote in a state, if it isn't in their constitution or a law, then the legislature could give all the Elector votes to trump. But the reverse is also true. In the US Constitution, neither the winning party nor voters have any say who gets to be in the Electoral Collage.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

10. The EC system needs work.

In any representative republic, it is a basic principal of Democracy that no vote should be without effect. I see one of the consequences being that voters among the minority party within a state have less motivation to actually vote. Nebraska and Maine apportion their electoral by giving 2 of their EC votes to the statewide winner and allocating the remaining EC votes in proportion to the state's popular vote. I like that system.

[Bettie]

9. The number of house members should be increased in any case

right now, a California (or Texas) member represents an enormous number of constituents relative to their peers from less populous states.

But, this could be workable, with a Democratic House, Senate and White House.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

11. Most folks have decision fatigue.

It's impossible to divide one's attention among such a large number issues that a considered and reasoned opinion can be formed concerning any but those the individual holds as priorities. I think being available to listen to even 1% of a small constituency would be impossible for any Representative today. This job falls to the purview of staff members.

To be fair, I haven't considered what effect changing the size of federal districts would have.
The size of the House has a role in its means of conducting business as well as the span of representation for each on the members.

It was the Republicans who established the 435 limit.