Democratizing the Electoral College

I had this idea in my head after the last election, I've searched through some previous threads and am under the idea that, generally, the electoral college seems unfair. I don't think it is, entirely.

Where am I getting this idea of democracy for the seemingly un-democratic system we have in place? Nebraska and Maine.

Why? The appropriation of electoral votes based on congressional district results as opposed to the winner take all system.

I've already taken the liberty of writing every single governor in the United States with my opinion and the numbers of those who voted (63% of eligible voters actually cast a vote) and the percentage of eligble voters who decided victory (33.34%).

Here's what I want you to know;
Popular vote %: Obama 52.9%, McCain 45.7%
Electoral college proportionate to %: Obama 67.84%(365 votes), McCain 32.16%(173 votes)

Now the fun part; had all the states distributed their electoral votes based on district, the proportionate percentage of the college would have been less than 1% different than that of the popular vote! This would also change the 'victor' of a state in six different states.

History will forever remember one candidate having a huge victory over his opponent while the reality of the situation (so far as the divisiveness of the country at the time) shows something completely different.

Here's what I want you to do;
If you agree with me I implore you to write your state legislative representative AND your governor and recommend making a change to your state constitution (ignore this if you're in Maine or Nebraska).
If you don't agree with me, tell me why not.

If you have ANY questions, please ask me.

Note: I realize this is a conspiracy site though please refrain from illuminati and NWO references as far as the 'decider' of the elections.

Which ever mate! I disapprove news agencies calling it, my big peeve.

Not good for GOP since they tend to benefit

www.thefreedictionary.com...

fine by me

Lets end it - what would the results of other elections looked like???



[edit on 28-12-2009 by Janky Red]

[edit on 28-12-2009 by Janky Red]

reply to post by Janky Red


Strangely enough, Bush would have won 2000 and 2008...I can only call it gerrymandering as someone mentioned earlier. A number of states do not have an equal number of constituents in their congressional districts. Florida, for example, is really out of whack and would have to completely redraw their districts to be even in their number of constituents; 4 million voted for McCain, 4.2 million voted for Obama. The state went to Obama but if you break it down by district McCain would've had more electoral college votes.

While I stand by my previous push for restructering the states electoral college voting, a number of states would have to even out their districts first.

Edit: I completely forgot to take into account the number of districts each state has gained since 2000 compared to 2008. My numbers for 2000 are obviously askew.

[edit on 28-12-2009 by links234]

The electoral college is exactly what it needs to be and what our Founders intended it to be.

It does not need to be fixed.

The Electoral College should be canned because the population inbalance bewteen Urban and rural areas , as well as some states that hold the bulk of Electoral Votes . The only simple way the Electoral College semi worthwhile would be to give each state three votes . This would avoid an tie in Electoral Votes .

Cheers xpert11 .

After running the numbers for the past three elections ('08, '04, '00) it's kinda of interesting to find that the electoral college tends to favor the republican party. Or...somehow I'm missing some information.

If all the states split their votes by district the last three elections would be as follows:
2000: 292 (Bush, 271 actual), 245 (Gore, 266 actual)
2004: 320 (Bush, 286 actual), 212 (Kerry, 251 actual)
2008: 249 (McCain, 173 actual), 289 (Obama, 365 actual)

Only when Bush won were the split numbers so far from the popular vote, when Obama won the split numbers were closer to the popular vote. My previous numbers for Florida weren't adding up because I was using 2008 district counts for the 2000 election. It was a much closer race after I considered that factor.

As much work as studying each election is I'm almost tempted to go farther back.

@GradyPhilpott: While I understand your viewpoint I find it very unfair to the voters who don't get counted (Republicans in California, Democrats in Oklahoma, and all the third party voters), not to mention how a popular vote can still lose an election.

I'm reviving this because, not only did I reference it to someone just a moment ago, but I found a great article to combat the act of gerrymandering from thinkprogress.org.