Proportional apportionment of electoral votes: a quick study (long)

[jmowreader]

The Republicans want to eliminate the current winner-take-all system of apportioning electoral votes for two reasons: California and New York. The Repugs believe that if they can take away California and New York's solid-blue standing, they can win elections forever.

The flipside of that is that if the entire Heartland and the entire South doesn't look like a truckload of red paint exploded on it, the Republicans could be in trouble.

It can't be both. But which is it? I decided to find out.

So seeing as how I was up too damn early this morning getting ready to go to a store meeting that I really wish I'd have skipped, I started playing around with this.

The methodology I used is pretty simple.

First, I determined what percentage of the electorate equates to one electoral vote. In a state with ten EV, one vote equals ten percent of the electorate. Pretty simple. We'll call this number a Fraction.

Next, we have to decide how many Fractions each candidate gets. To do so, first I divided Bush's percentage of the popular vote by the number of Fractions in the state, then extracted the integer and the decimal. The integer we will call Solid Fractions, the decimal we will call Contested Fractions. I then did the same thing with Kerry. (Because of the way this is calculated, third-party candidates received three EV. As long as they didn't go to Rocky Sudayha, that's fine.)

Each Solid Fraction a candidate gets equals one electoral vote. So far so good.

Now for Contested Fractions: This is best illustrated with an example, and Maryland looks convenient. It has 10 EV; the state went 55.7% Kerry, 43.3% Bush. Kerry receives 5 solid fractions and .57 contested fractions; Bush receives 4 solid fractions and .33 contested fractions. You can't split an elector's vote, so whoever has the highest contested fraction wins the elector. In this case, it's Kerry.

I tried posting a chart of this (anyone who wants the Excel file, e-mail me at [e-mail]), but all you need is the final numbers:

Under the current winner-take-all system:
Bush: 286 ev
Kerry: 252 ev
Total: 538 ev (34 ev advantage for Bush)

Under a completely proportional system:
Bush: 275 ev
Kerry: 260 ev
Third-parties: 3 ev
Total: 538 ev (15 ev advantage for Bush)

Bush still wins, but it's a lot closer.

Next, I went looking for eight states that were close enough that a little more Dem GOTV, a little more cash sprinkled around, or a few brochures explaining some of Bush's scandals might have pulled enough of the contested fraction to us to get one more elector and found them: Arizona, Iowa, Mississippi, New Jersey, Nevada, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. This would have put us at Bush 267, Kerry 268.

Now we just need five more percent of Florida and two more percent of California to send the moving vans to the White House.

Okay, it's an academic exercise...but the general consensus on the Republican side is that proportional apportionment helps them and hurts us, and (at least in this election) that doesn't seem to be the case.

[MaineYooper]

1. by district?

Here in Maine, we split them, but not directly by the state's popular vote.

The two electors representing the two senators go as the statewide proportional vote goes, winner take all. The rest of them, representing the house seats (in our case, the other two) go according to the popular vote of the congressional district. So Maine could conceivably go either 3-1 or 4-0 (it went 4-0 for Kerry this year)

Has anyone out there seen a nationwide analysis of this type of apportionment?

[liberalpragmatist]

5. BAD Idea - Nixon would've defeated Kennedy

It's a little better than the current system in theory b/c if you had no gerrymandered districts, candidates would campaign in most states.

However, gerrymandering makes that argument moot. Most districts are already locked up. The presidential race would be even more concentrated in a few key states and just 30 national districts.

And even if the system were fair, it still is entirely possible for a candidate to be elected without winning a plurality of the popular vote. Bush would've beaten Gore by an even greater margin - Florida wouldn't have mattered. And in 1960, studies have shown that Nixon would've beaten Kennedy even though he lost the PV.

[Spangle]

2. In Red States

Why vote if your Blue? I was pretty much asked that. After the election I got a report from a "red state". The election was pretty much "low key". If it wasn't for a local race, no one would KNOW an election was going on. Hmmmm....

Make the votes count and people might show up in numbers not realized in those "small populated RED states."

Changing the system to where people feel like their vote has a chance to change something, then people will come out and vote. That is why battle ground states have such high turn out and massive voter drives.

With the votes actualy COUNTING, then the canidates would at least stop by and vist. Right now? Why stop by? Either it's "for sure" or a "no way."

For the lesser populated states and minor EV states, chanign the Electoral college system would be a "God Send" for them. Tee Hee...

Personaly, I would like to do away with the electoral college all together. It was great for it's time. But now days, we are a moble society. Our votes should count equaly no matte where we live at the momment. Next year we might be someplace else! In such a system, it wouldn't matter the state.. every vote would be needed to be counted! Every last vote would be important!

[Lone_Wolf]

3. Interesting... how about financial considerations?

It would be much more expensive to campaign in a state where electoral votes are proportaional. This might work out to the republicans advantage since they always seem to raise more money. This might be why the Repukes are interested in this.

[jmowreader]

4. This year we raised about as much as they did

But you're right, campaigning in a state with proportional apportionment (in this scenario, all of them) would be more expensive.

And campaigning in some of those now-red states would be more expensive still. Take Idaho--I seem to keep coming back to that one, eh? There are four major population centers in Idaho--Coeur d'Alene, Lewiston, Boise and Idaho Falls. Sun Valley has a lot of people (this is where the conservative movie stars like to live), Sandpoint has quite a few (and if you do Sandpoint you can get the people in Boundary County and the northeastern Washington voters), Moscow would be good to campaign in (especially since you can also pick up the voters in the Palouse on the Washington side of the state line--Pullman's only eight miles from Moscow) and Orofino's picking up, but overall if you hit CDA (where the liberal movie stars are intermixed with just about every white-supremacist group in the United States), Lewiston, Boise and Idaho Falls you can count on seeing all of the people who intended to go to a political rally in the first place. The problem is that CDA is over a hundred miles from Lewiston, which is over 300 miles from Boise, which is a couple hundred miles from Idaho Falls. To campaign effectively in Idaho, you'd need either a plane or a bus and a week.

I think the Repukes think places like Wyoming and Montana will remain monolithically red, so they're looking only at the upside-from-their-perspective: a proportionally-apportioned California has 20 red votes in it. The upside-from-our-perspective is that 20 proportionally-apportioned now-red states will have at least one blue vote apiece in them.

[Skink]

6. Who here doesn't have access to news?

I supported Dean before I saw him in person. The same argument should be used to do away with caucuses. And finding resposible journalism isn't hard either, just stay away from the Murdoch media.:mad:

[liberalpragmatist]

7. Proportional allotment is a decent suggestion - do it to the nearest TENTH

Personally, I don't think it's BEST (which would be a straightforward national popular vote). It doesn't account for turnout - for instance, if Nebraska only has 30% turnout and California has 70% turnout, the difference in popular votes doesn't matter - all the matters is that the votes cast are divided by the pre-assigned allocation.

However, it would still be much better than the current system and while it would be theoretically possible for the PV winner to lose the election, it would be FAR less likely. And it would empower people everywhere to feel that their vote really counts. What bothers me about the EC even more than the fact that the "winner" can lose is that b/c of the EC the VAST majority of the country is completely detached from the process. ALL the attention goes to the swing states. Almost 80% of the states become mere spectators.

Some problems: In a close race, it's very possible that nobody gets a majority. Hence, there'd likely have to be a plurality-threshold attached to any amendment mandating this type of allotment. Perhaps, say, you'd need at least a 40% plurality in order to win, otherwise it would go to maybe a joint session of Congress, where every congressperson or senator's vote counts the same. A majority would be needed here.

IF we were to use proportional allotment, then I would favor abolishing "live" electors. In other words, abolish the electoral college as an institution, as a body. Instead, award EC votes automatically, and to the nearest tenth.