Would splitting the electorate vote in each state hurt or help. My vote

[patricia92243]

is wasted in a Republican state. I feel that with a split in electoral votes would result in my vote and a lot of other Democrats would finally be counted.

Any thought on this???

[Hog lover]

1. Would be the same as popular vote only, wouldn't it?

[aden_nak]

6. It would be closer.

Electoral votes would be split up by district or percentage.

The real flaw with the electoral college is that it bases its number of votes on the total population, but not the entire population of any given state VOTES. So if nine people vote in Eexas, and it goes for Bush, but then nine thousand people vote in Rhode Island and it goes for Kerry, those nine votes in California were considerably more valuable.

Your vote is worth LESS and LESS for each other person in your state that votes, in other words. And yes, it's worth even less still if your state is a dead lock for another candidate. It's about time we did away with this archaic process, if for no better reason than to stop this fixation on "swing states" and force/allow the candidates to deal with the nation as a whole.

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

7. Actually not.

The number of electors consists of #Reps + #Senators; so all but two electors are assigned in proportion to votes received in the state, but the two corresponding to the senators are assigned to the statewide winner -- so, since rethugs win more states, they have an edge on the electors going in :-(

[rogerashton]

14. It doesn't have to be done that way.

But it is in Maine, and makes it worse.

[PatsFan2004]

21. More small states are Repug states,

so therefore, their electoral votes count "more" in terms of population with the added two electors for Senators. But I think that this would rarely be a real issue.

However, splitting the electoral votes might encourage more fraud in each and every state as opposed to just battleground states like Florida and Ohio. Extra votes don't help right now in Texas and Mississippi with the current electoral system.

[Bill McBlueState]

9. not quite

A small state like Wyoming has more electoral votes per person than a large state like California. (Wyoming has 3 votes for about 500,000 people, or one vote for every 170,000. California has 55 votes for 34,000,000 people, or one vote for every 620,000.) The discrepancy arises because every state gets at least three votes, no matter how small.

So proportional allocation of EVs in every state would come closer to reflecting the choice of the majority, but would still conflict with the "one person, one vote" principle.

[forgethell]

2. A lot of the electoral votes from the

big states like California or New York would go to the Rs. I like it the way it is, myself.

[MousePlayingDaffodil]

3. How do you want to split them?

Proportionally, the way the Colorado initiative is proposing, or the method used in Maine and Nebraska, where a state's electoral votes are awarded based on the individual congressional districts won by each candidate, with the statewide winner getting the two electoral votes each state gets for its representation in the Senate?

[Barney Rocks]

4. I like the method used

in Maine and Nebraska. I would favor it--just because it is a little better than winner take all. BUT only if all states do it and only if all states use the same method.

It will get confusing very fast if we have 50 different methods.

[MousePlayingDaffodil]

8. Had the Maine/Nebraska system been in place in every state . . .

. . . in 2000, Bush would have won by a much wider margin in the Electoral College than he actually did.

[Barney Rocks]

16. but that doesn't

mean it would work the same in every election?

[pmbryant]

19. Beware Maine and Nebraska. Why? Gerrymandering!

Awarding electoral votes based on congressional district, as Maine and Nebraska do, opens the door to gerrymandered districts deciding Presidential elections.

Isn't it bad enough that this sleazy practice determines our congressional representatives?

Keep gerrymandering out of the electoral college, please!

Peter


Edit: typo

[flyingfysh]

5. leave it alone; splitting only the blue states would be a disaster

splitting only the blue states would award lots of extra votes to the RW, for no return. And there would be challenges in each state about exactly how to award the electoral votes.

Split every state or no state; splitting only blue states would give perpetual power to the RW.

[naufragus]

10. It would be good if...

every state did it.

it would force candidates for president to actually campaign for EVERY state.

most of us not in FL or OH feel completely ignored

all elections are about now are 5 states. sorry but iowa and new hampshire really dont deserve as much attention as they have been getting

[doubleplusgood]

11. your vote will be counted

...if we completely DO AWAY with the Electoral College & just go to direct election. (Instant Runoff Voting would be best). Those who favor "splitting" or "apportioning" the electoral college based upon popular vote are admitting that the direct vote percentages are worthy of mirroring in the electoral college. If this is so, just get rid of the EC then.

[Nerdling]

12. Bad Idea.

I'm in favour of the swing states but i'll be done screwed if I'll sacrifice 20 off of California or 10 from New York.

[delete_bush]

13. Splitting is too problematic.

if we're going to keep the electoral college we should get rid of the two automatic 'free' electors per state and base it on the number of congressional districts. Gore would have won in 2000 under this scenario, and it would help Kerry this year.

[MousePlayingDaffodil]

17. Not true . . .

. . . in that Bush won 225 congressional districts to Gore's 210. By adding in the two electoral votes for winning statewide (Bush won 30 states, Gore won 20, plus picked up three electoral votes for carrying the District of Columbia), the final tally under the Maine/Nebraska system would have been even more in favor of Bush, 285 to 253.

[delete_bush]

23. Sorry, I wasn’t clear when I mentioned

congressional districts. I was referring to a winner-take-all scenario with the allocation of electoral college votes (ECV’s) per state based on the number of congressional districts, as they are now, but without the additional two ‘senatorial’ electors. Wyoming, for example, would get 1 ECV vs. the current 3.

Bush received 271 electoral college votes (ECV's) in 2000 and carried 30 states. Subtracting the 60 ECV's from these states his final ECV would be 211. Gore received 266 ECV's and carried 20 states. Subtracting 40 ECV's would leave him with 226 ECV's and a clear win.

[Bill McBlueState]

15. It shouldn't be about hurting or helping us

It's recognized around the world, and in every state and city in the US, that direct popular vote is the most democratic way to elect a chief executive. In every state, the candidate who wins the most votes becomes the governor, not the one who carries the most counties.

So it should really be about making our presidential election more democratic, instead of whether it would help a particular side in a given election.

That's exactly why it's going to be a long time before we see serious reform of the electoral college -- I certainly don't want Colorado to split its votes if that would help * at all.

[Guaranteed]

18. It's very simple: splitting is a good thing in clearly red states, and

a bad thing in battleground and blue states.

Any state that we know is going to Bush, we want to split, in order to siphon off EVs from him.

[vet_against_Bush]

20. It would help us in red states and hurt us in blue states. nt

[Greyskye]

22. Dump the EC completely

Go to a direct vote system. This would require a Constitutional amendment. The only reasons for keeping the Electoral College at this point is that it's hard (and justifiably so) to change the Constitution.

The next best thing would be to modify the current EC system so that every persons vote counts equally; instead of people in large population states having their votes count less than those people in small population states.